Avsi/Tents 2005

The First
Charity
Is Education
Every year, the “Christmas Tents” collect funds for AVSI (NGO Association of Volunteers in International Service) projects throughout the world to help the needy, and to campaign to sensitize public opinion about social issues. This campaign enjoys the fantastic involvement of thousands of people who, with Christian charity and passion, organize hundreds of events to help “the Tents.”
This year, six projects will be sustained with funds collected by the Tents, six projects to help human development through education. The funds collected will be used to give life to educational works in Ecuador, Albania, Sierra Leone, and Pakistan, and they will also serve to support families in the United States who have lost everything to Hurricane Katrina, and to assign scholarships to deserving youth who live in developing countries

1/ECUADOR
Country: Ecuador
Cities: Portoviejo and Quito
Project: Formation for parents and teaching for children. The project will also promote the creation of small “family nursery schools” and parish schools in the more isolated localities, and activities to improve living conditions for the family and the territory (health, food, family income, water sanitation, agricultural production

Vital Need
for Development
This country has grave economic and educational problems; we are helping the family in order to make a contribution to society. Pablo Lucio-Paredes calls for action
Perhaps it’s so obvious that it needs to be repeated: “Education is a fundamental key to the development of society,” affirms the economist Pablo Lucio-Paredes in Ecuador, Vice President of the Esquela de la Liberdad Association, a national association founded to promote freedom of education, with hundreds of members from the academic, political, and intellectual worlds. “… and not only for economic development, because education enables people to be and feel more human, more complete, with a broader horizon of opportunity. Developments in education are a vital necessity and a moral imperative!” The economist has no doubts: “The factor of education intervenes in many steps of the economic cycle, from savings to technological development, even to the social distribution of earnings. The first form of society man encounters is that of the family, and it is precisely here that his education is in play, because this is where he will prepare to insert himself into the other forms of social and political organization.”
All the studies on the subject demonstrate that the higher a family’s education level, the higher the levels of life that can be reached by its members. “Society itself as a whole needs education, because it needs to make wise collective decisions.” The Ecuadorian government’s budget for elementary education is less than $300 a year per child, and there has never been a collective intervention to overcome the essential challenges of the sector’s problems, such as support for teachers in obtaining adequate preparation or their assignment in the territory.
Thus, AVSI’s Tents project to support the education of 1,000 children of Quito and Portoviejo can play an important role. “The strength of this project lies in partnership and the principle of subsidiarity. When State and society can collaborate, each gives his own contribution: the former, the context of action, and the latter, the capacity to act, thus reversing the trend in the field of education, and in so doing, the children are better cared for and have a horizon of concrete hope. Education in this way does not develop through simple inertia, but through the explicit decision of a group of people who engage themselves. External funds accompany the process that affirms that poor children also can receive a quality education.”

Nursery schools
in the forest by Daniela Tasca
The educators’ car trundles along daily under the Ecuadorian sun, up and down the dirt roads that the early December rains change from dust clouds to impossible mud paths. It trundles along every day to bring the small groups of mothers who gather sometimes in one house, sometimes in another, the companionship of an educative walk taken together. With the mothers, while the children play on the “magic carpet,” the educators converse about a wide variety of issues to guide their human formation and support their task as the first, irreplaceable educators of their children. With the mothers and fathers, the educator visits and works in the communal garden, directed by our agronomist; he inquires whether the pump is working, asks about the chicks they’ve begun raising with the help of our veterinarian, and informs the doctor or health agent about a sick or malnourished child. PelCa (Preescolar en la Casa), Jip (Jardines Infantile Parroquiales), and Cae (Centro de Apoyo Escolar) are not the strange initials of the scholastic bureaucracy, but the names of a reality that has flowered under our eyes. For four years now, Julcuy, Soledad, Piñas, Agua Pato, and Mero Seco; El Paraíso, San Ramón, Santa Rosa, Santa Maria of the coastal region of Manabí; and, as of last year, Pisulí and la Roldós in Quito, are names you may not see on the maps, but are well known in the families of our Italian friends. In rural and urban areas, totally on the margins of the already arduous Ecuadorian development marked by a coup d’etat every two years, about 800 families with almost 1,000 children from infancy to 7 or 8 years old identify with a common walk. We call it AEDI–Integrated Educative Action–but in concrete terms it translates into mothers who play with their children in attractive and welcoming nursery school rooms and educators who wait for their 20 children for after-school programs in the Portofranco Center. And so it happens that Jacinto, a young father from Piñas, catalyzes a friendship among all the fathers of their village, manifested, first, in the colorful vitality of the nursery school built for their children, and next, in a splendid garden endowed with an ultramodern irrigation system.

2/ALBANIA
Country: Albania
City: Tirana
Project: The Kardinal Mikel Koliqi Center for formation of educators and teachers, recognized by the Albanian Education Ministry

Formation and
Qualification to Break out of the Shell
Teaching appropriate methods
and providing instruments for youth and women, in a country that is going through years of transition and development
by Simone Andreozzi
In Albania, there is great need for formation and re-training of local human resources in these years of transition and development. The public school system is still experiencing the strong inheritance of an educative method imposed during decades of Communist regime, and hence has difficulty adapting quickly to the new challenges brought by the changes underway in the country. In particular, it is fundamental that in the sector of education and support of minors, Albanian educators be able to acquire educative methods and instruments suitable for the exigencies and needs of the young people, surely one of the most fragile and risk-prone categories.
Equally important is the formation of women. Albanian women have yet to find their position in society. Formation and preparation for the labor market is the principal instrument for destroying the “shell” that encloses the Albanian woman, in order that she may achieve the just equilibrium in family and society. These two aspects constitute the foundation for the Formation Center that Sh.I.S. (AVSI partner in Albania) has recently established with the task of offering services of formation and professional re-training. The Center’s highest priority is to form and re-train people in the field of education and formation. The Center’s work to date has earned the approval of the Albanian authorities, such that AVSI and Sh.I.S. have been officially recognized by the Public Education Ministry with legal status on the national level.
The Center is prepared to operate through different itineraries, able to move according to specific methodologies. One of the first paths the Center intends to take is to provide more training to those who already have skills in education. The courses offered will be organized for two kinds of educational professionals (nursery school teachers and educators), and on two levels: foundational level formation and more in-depth study.
The Center also plans to offer preparation for specific professional skills.

Testimony
In November 2004, Evionda Qendro, an Albania educator, completed her Master’s degree for “trainers of trainers” with an internship in “Living and growing in the nursery school” in Milan
I am very satisfied with the formation I received during the internship in Italy. I can say that I have profited from it in every sense. I fully shared the educational project done by the Maddalena di Canossa Nursery School in Cassano Magnago, and I liked the way the teachers collaborated with the parents so that this project could truly become “life” for the integral growth of their children. I greatly appreciated the fact that their objectives and educational lines were in harmony with the educational project of our Arcobaleno Nursery School in Tirana: accompanying the child in his physical, intellectual, and spiritual growth, in order to offer the child an integrated formation, so that each can give his best and be useful to himself and to tomorrow’s society. I perceived in everything a climate of collaboration among the parents, the school, the children, and the educators. Another point that struck me was how the teachers welcomed the children’s initiatives and used them as work material. I have returned home with a greater wealth of ideas and a great desire to put everything I’ve learned into practice concretely in my class; for example, the “packet of signs and pictures” to evaluate the level of knowledge the students have attained.
Evionda Qendro

3/SIERRA LEONE
Country: Sierra Leone
City: Freetown
Project: Educational center for young people located at Margai College, for the development of didactic and recreational activities

A Place for the Students Within the College
A chapel and church hall at Milton Margai College are needed to promote the activities of the Christian students, a project that continues the educational work of Father Berton
by Gabriella Bigi
The Milton Margai College of Education and Technology was founded in Freetown, Sierra Leone, during the early years of independence by Sir Milton Margai, champion of national independence, fervent Christian, and the first Prime Minister of Sierra Leone.
The College, currently part of the University of Freetown, offers a degree in teaching. About 3,550 students attend, 1,300 of whom are Catholics. The College Statutes stipulated that land be granted within the structure for the construction of places of worship and buildings for religious and social activities. An Islamic Center has already been built, and some Protestant churches are preparing projects for a permanent presence in the College for the instruction of their members. Even though the institution has a Catholic chaplain, coordinator of the chaplains of the other denominations as well, to date it has not been possible to erect a building for promoting activities for the Catholic students present in the College, one that would identify the Christian community in a spirit of ecumenism. The project presented by Fr. Berton makes possible the construction of a chapel and church hall for social and religious activities, including a library at the service of Catholic and non-Catholic students who attend the College. This project provides continuity to the great work done by Fr. Berton before and during the war, through the Family Homes Movement Foundation, permitting many street children and child-soldiers to return to normal life, either with their original families or with adoptive ones. It is the most important challenge in the current growth and reconstruction of this young but tormented nation.

From the adventure of education to “the risk of education”
The idea of an educational center within the College is explained by the Saverian missionary who has for years been recovering child-soldiers and supporting their education
by padre Bepi Berton
It’s not easy to make entirely shared pastoral choices, especially for us missionaries who live in a cultural environment that is not always sufficiently interiorized. You can imitate the superficial and external aspects of another culture, but making it yours to the point that it guides you in your pastoral choices is very arduous, if not impossible. May the native church come quickly! But in the meantime, we have to do our best, maybe committing errors that tomorrow will be held against us with a vengeance. Missionary choice One of these choices, also criticized by missionaries in positions of responsibility, has been that of education. Often, it’s not fundamentally criticized, but it’s practically watered down, if not set aside. When I say “the choice of education,” I don’t mean building schools, no matter how necessary this may be. Giorgio Paolucci expresses it better in his December 18, 2004, article in Avvenire, in preparation for the AVSI Tents for Christmas 2004, writing, “Promoting development does not just mean increasing funds to the southern part of the world. In fact, as many cases over these years have demonstrated, aid often ends up enriching the oligarchies and local bureaucracies, and does not reach the populations, accentuating the already existent inequalities. The heart of development is man, educated and instructed; man, conscious of his dignity and the meaning of his existence; man, who walks with a goal, who rediscovers the most authentic meaning of charity: the moved donation of oneself to another, love for the destiny of the other, that presses us to take on the spiritual and material needs of our neighbor.” The college center for Catholic students Thus I came to learn about a situation that never ceased to amaze me. I have a friend who is the chaplain at the Milton Margai College of Education and Technology in Freetown, which prepares the teachers who will educate future generations. This college was born as a Christian institution. I went to see my friend to congratulate him on his important role as “educator of educators.” The road didn’t exactly give the impression of leading to a university, and I began to ask myself whether the institution was so important after all. My face got even longer when I came upon the entrance, and there, dominating it, was the Islamic Center. “Some fine Christian College!” I thought to myself. “But just wait, you’ll see,” I encouraged myself, “Wait till you see what a church you’ll find, what a church hall.” Squeezing my eyes a bit closed so as not to be distracted by the neglect reigning everywhere, I could appreciate the bulk and the layout of the buildings, and the admirably dignified behavior of the many young people who went about the avenues. Unfortunately, I also saw the overcrowding in the dormitories, but, on the whole, I was quite impressed, if for no other reason than because of the life I saw there. And I looked for the church and church hall. Well, I had to do a lot of looking. The chaplain’s house “The chaplain lives over there,” a student said. In short, the chaplain was almost renting from the university in one of the many little houses built for faculty. He celebrated Mass in the classroom where religion was taught—the Bible, the Koran, Hinduism, and all the rest. How could it be that a place that identified our Christians, our Catholics, had never been erected? He told me, “The university gave me land for the chapel and church hall, but soon outside pressures will force the Rector to take it away from me. I can’t manage alone to build a Christian Center that identifies our students, that helps them to identify themselves with their faith.” He seemed like a fellow on the verge of giving in to despondency. The idea of doing something began to dog me. I re-read the sentence from Avvenire. Then, this summer I spoke with Fr. Carrón about it. And here we are, with the AVSI project. Thus, the great adventure of education, the great risk of education, continues in Sierra Leone, or, rather, is reaching its coronation.

4/HURRICANE KATRINA
Country: Louisiana (Usa)
City: New Orleans and surrounding cities
Project: Help for evacuated families of the New Orleans and Baton Rouge area and for families and groups around Houston, Texas, who are hosting evacuees

The Hope to Begin Again and Rebuild
Aid comes for an America devastated by the hurricane; families who have literally lost everything thank contributors
“To all the members of AVSI: Infinite thanks for the generous contribution you have given my family. Not even in our worst nightmares could we ever have imagined losing our house, our jobs, and everything we’ve always worked for. Just in the area of Saint Bernard, about 28,000 homes were hit. The cities of Arabi, Chalmette, Mereaux, Violet, one after the other, our neighbors of the suburb of Palquemines–everything devastated. Every time I return, I am amazed to see how terrifying the force of wind and water can be. We had about 10 feet of water where we lived, and then Hurricane Rita submerged us again with over 3 feet of water. All the good wishes, the extraordinary generosity, and the prayers of so many people like you are helping us rebuild our lives. Please express our sincere gratitude to all those who contributed to your donation.” Thus wrote Phil O’Flarrity, one of the many victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Homeless and jobless
In a situation that is still disastrous, with thousands of people homeless and jobless, where many families have been forced to split up, the words “helping us rebuild our lives” are striking. It’s much more than receiving material aid; it’s the certain hope of being able to begin living again, even for those who have lost everything. Andree writes, “I can’t tell you what a blessing your checks have been. Life after Katrina is very different. When I think back to all that devastation, I feel that day after day, the weight I have been carrying has been getting lighter, not only because of the material aid that has been offered to us, but also because of the constant help in dealing emotionally with this sad and heavy cross. While I swing between discouragement and hope, I feel supported by the arms that help me carry this burden. Thanks to my family and friends, there has been a constant demonstration of compassion and concern that has made an enormous difference in our capacity to face the situation. It has made us more aware of our need to share the suffering of those who suffer.”

Two characteristics
These letters are a first response to the AVSI project, associated with the AVSI-USA help campaign, put into action after the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina. The campaign has two fundamental characteristics: providing direct financial aid to poor families in great difficulty and, with the “Adopt a Family” initiative, offering the opportunity for families, groups of students, and professional groups to establish a direct and ongoing bond with the families of evacuees. It works through on-site volunteers who see that the aid is targeted and personalized, so that there is a face behind the aid. As of October, over 20 families have benefited from this aid.
The Adopt a Family campaign has been presented publicly on many occasions throughout the United States. Concrete responses arrived quickly. In an example for everyone, funds collected by some Google employees were doubled with a matching grant from the Google Foundation (a program in which a sponsor doubles the amount of a private donation). There is still a great deal to do to rebuild, but every little bit donated is a gesture to reaffirm that life–and all it is made of–is a great gift that is always worth living.

5/PAKISTAN
Country: Pakistan
City: Islamabad
Project: Ave Maria College in Islamabad. AVSI is launching a collaboration with Bishop Anthony Lobo of Islamabad-Rawalpindi, Director of the Ave Maria College, one of the few Catholic schools in all of Pakistan. In this country, Catholics are an often marginalized and persecuted minority. The AVSI Tents will support the college, giving many young people the chance to continue their studies and play an active role in Pakistani society. The Ave Maria College is located in one of the areas recently hit by earthquakes

Monsignor Lobo:
“Now We Need
Everything”
“I was in my room when I felt the quake. I realized immediately that there would be enormous damage. The reports I received from the various parishes confirmed my fears.” Since 1993, Msgr. Anthony Lobo has been Bishop of Islamabad-Rawalpindi, a diocese including the Pakistani part of Kashmir worst hit by the earthquake, as well as the mountainous part of Punjab. About 300,000 Catholics, out of a population of 36 million, live there. This year’s AVSI Tents will support the Ave Maria College located in his diocese. “The parishes of Ayubia and Abbottabad,” says the Prelate, “have suffered great material damage. The diocesan Caritas [Care] has been in the field since the first day, serving everyone, Muslims and Christians, but it can only count on about ten animators. Many families need everything, particularly in the villages that were totally levelled.”

6/SCHOLARSHIPS
Countries: 30 countries in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Asia.
Project: Scholarships in collaboration with the Yes Association (Youth Education Support–www.yesassociation.org) for deserving youth who want to go to high school and university, so they can become protagonists of their own material and spiritual development and change

Aid for Education Is a Push for Life
Once again, this year AVSI and the YES Association propose the institution of scholarships for youth in developing countries
by Alberto Brugnoli, direttore Yes
The scholarship initiative is being promoted for the third year now, in the conviction that the formation of youth is a crucial element for the adequate development of the human personality and the first motor in the process of civilization and economic and social growth of a country. The students selected are accompanied not only with financial help, but also with personalized tutoring to guide them through an educational itinerary that also proposes extra-scholastic activities and engages their free time. In 2004, 290 scholarships were awarded for a total of about $95,000 while in 2005, 350 scholarships were awarded for a total of about $210,000. The scholarships can amount to a significant part of the cost the student is called to bear, but never the total, in order to encourage the student’s responsibility for his own formation, including the economic aspect. The young people who receive scholarships come from disadvantaged familial and social situations. Consequently, their chances of successfully completing high school studies or beginning university is tied to their working jobs that sometimes demand more than a normal day’s work. Such a situation does not enable the student to dedicate enough time to his studies, leading to dropping out or formal, unproductive attendance. In addition, the fact that students come from big city suburbs or small towns on the periphery makes it even more difficult for them to participate in scholastic activities and increases the costs they bear.

Dreams come true
The following are some letters from students
who have received scholarships
I grew up in a village called Koiankos, in Kazakhstan. Ever since I was little, I have loved studying and sports, and have received a lot of help in all this from my mother. My father left us when I was about 10, but life went on and, immediately after this, I had my encounter with God, through Fr. Massimo and the children he gathers in Kapciagay, the city where we moved. Thanks to him, I was able to move ahead, grow, and come to know the Christian experience. My mother and I were enormously happy when good, attentive, and simple people like Silvia told me that there could be a chance of help in going to the university. So now, thanks to the help of these people, I am studying architecture at the university. I am living in Almaty so that I can attend classes. This year, in Kapciagay, they needed to build a new church, because there were so many children that they didn’t fit anymore. Fr. Massimo told me about this need, and asked me to try to imagine how it could be met. In a month of work I tried to draw up a blueprint for a church and other buildings that could be built in the future for hospitality. Fr. Massimo showed my work to the Bishop, who approved it. After this, we gave our plan to a building firm that promised to complete the work.
Erlan, Kapciagay (Kazakhstan)

You must know that what you’ve done for me is much more than providing economic help; you have given me the opportunity to study a subject I really desire at the university, and this is only the beginning. For me, being a social assistant means achieving my objectives: working in the education of children and adolescents. I had to communicate this to you to let you be part of my dream, which is now becoming reality.
Andréia Maida M. Porto, Manaus (Brazil)

My thank you from the heart for the help you have given me. Your contribution was used to cover my tuition and lodging expenses for school. Now that I have finished this school, I have succeeded in finding a job in Valona in the telephone company. I will always be grateful to you! Thank you!
Darjana Bushaj, Tirana (Albania)

TO donate to THE AVSI TENTS
Contributions, tax deductible for U.S. residents, can be made out to AVSI-USA, marking the check with “Tents 2005.”
Mail to: AVSI-USA - 420 Lexington Ave., Suite 2754-55 - New York, NY 10170. Visit our website www.avsi-usa.org.
in europe: Checking account: BANCA POPOLARE DI MILANO – Agency number 026 - Piazza Duca D’Aosta 8/2, MILANO (ITALIA)
Checking account number 000000019000 – Account holder name: AVSI - ABI 05584 - CAB 01626 - CIN C
BBAN: C0558401626000000019000 (Basic Bank Account Number for National Money Orders)
For bank transfers from abroad: IBAN: IT 61 C0558401626000000019000 - BIC (Swift code): BPMIITM1026
Postal checking account: number 000000522474 – Account holder name: “AVSI Solidarietà”, Via M. Gioia 181 20125 MILANO