Betania Social Table. From diversity to inclusion
Pep Pla Mora. Betania Pious Schools
Origin
With the slogan “My place is your place. From diversity to inclusion”, the III Social Table was held on March 1, 2024 in the Piarist presence of Aluche (Madrid), which brought together more than two hundred people, including educators and young people from the different and diverse Piarist realities of the Province of Betania.
A proposal that comes from the current Framework Project of Provincial Social Transformation after the experience of past meetings held initially with the aim of seeking synergies and meeting spaces between the various activities and social works of the “newly born” Province EEPP Betania. This province is the fruit of the union between the demarcations of Valencia and the Third Hispanic Demarcation, which has barely 12 years of common history.
The social table is a meeting place for the educational agents of social transformation in Betania. A space for sharing and working together to generate alliances and synergies between schools, boarding schools, Santiago Uno and Itaka-Escolapios; and from where to propose lines of progress and concrete actions that make visible our charismatic option for the most vulnerable groups.
Purpose
The first two meetings gave rise to the current Framework for Social Transformation, and once the starting point was set, for this III Social Table we defined some objectives more focused on joint growth for a greater commitment and social inclusion in all the works and Piarist presences. Seeking the visibility of the work that is currently being done, as well as the connection between the proposal of Formal Education and Non-Formal Education, considering the latter a good tool for the attention to diversity for our schools.
Addressees
Finally, it was proposed to generate an intergenerational space where all the adults involved in the Piarist mission of Betania, could share deep reflections and diverse learning together with adolescents and young people of our works. Both formal and non-formal.
From the Provincial Team of Presence (at the proposal of the Social Transformation Team), educators, directors and young people over 16 years of age from all the Piarist schools of the EEPP Betania, and the socio-educational centers of Itaka-Escolapios as well as the works of Santiago Uno were called. In addition, thanks to the great reception that was made from the presence of Aluche, it was possible to invite people or entities that collaborate with our projects such as the School of Social Educators of the University of ESCUNI, for example.
Development of the experience
The Provincial Team of Social Transformation was in charge of preparing the meeting presented by Fr. Provincial, Jorge Ivan Ruiz, who introduced the day by emphasizing that the intuition of Calasanz “is more alive and gives much more of itself than we think”. The main guest Lola Arrieta, a Vedruna religious, proposed in the conference several guidelines to deepen the education of girls, boys and young people from the encounter, emphasizing the accompaniment: “The accompaniment is a subversive act – she explained -, because it is to decide that where I am, the others, as far as possible, will not be invisible or indifferent”.
During the second part of the morning, Jesús Garrote, director of the Casa Escuela de Santiago Uno, coordinated a meeting with young people who participate in non-formal education projects, from Salamanca, Valencia and Madrid through the socio-educational centers of Itaka-Escolapios, in which it was made clear that diversity is a reality today, and inclusion is an option. During the dialogue, the young people showed that the process is not without difficulties and that it is not a matter of making it “easy”, but that an education that has the ability to find the best version for each student is needed.
The workshops prepared for the afternoon by young people, collaborating entities and educators of our Piarist works favored a space of encounter and joint learning between adults and minors. As well as the end of the party with a special performance by the Circus School of Santiago Uno.
Throughout the experience, we highlighted the commitment to publicize social initiatives in the service sector, such as Carifood or Tómate algo, companies for the labor insertion of vulnerable groups. These companies, together with our students from Milani and Malvarrosa, were in charge of the catering throughout the day.
Impact assessment
Both the organization and the people who participated in the III Social Table valued the experience very positively, since it favored a reflection and an impulse of the Social Transformation in its different levels of concreteness and putting in relation to the diverse realities of each presence. Moreover, some of the young people who participated in the meeting elaborated during and after the meeting a document in which they exposed their educational needs, their demands and their dreams that, a couple of months later, they presented to the Provincial Team of Presence in one of their meetings in Madrid.
Contacto: peppla@itakaescolapios.org
