At the initiative and invitation of Father Fernando Sánchez, the members of the newly establish Confraternity of Christian Educators met for the first time (July 23, 2020).

At the beginning, we placed in the hands of our Mother the fruits of the meeting and this project which we were about to begin. Immediately afterwards, Father Fernando Sánchez invited each of the participants to introduce themselves, indicating the branch of the Family that they belong to and the role that they occupy.

As the 27 participants introduced themselves, it was noted that there were members from different Vincentian branches such as: Congregation of the Mission, Daughters of Charity, Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, FAVILA (Latin American Vincentian Family), AMAVI (Association of Vincentian Teachers), Vincentian Marian Youth, among others. These members were from various countries such as Argentina, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Salvador, Colombia, Puerto Rico, Bolivia, Guatemala, Nicaragua, etc.

Next, Father Fernando then invited us to write in the chat the reason why we responded positively to the invitation to participate in this Confraternity. The answers were as follows

• Grow in the Vincentian charism.
• A space for meeting and reflection and dialoguing about our experience as Vincentian educators.
• Know, share the charism.
• Promote the Vincentian charism and seek bonds of fraternity between our various countries.
• Share the charism among us and make it known to others.
• Strengthen each other as Vincentian educators, an opportunity to share the gifts that the Lord and the Virgin have entrusted to us.
• Share teaching methodologies and strategies in the Vincentian charism.
• Strengthen promotion of the charism.
• Strengthen educational work and unite Vincentian criteria towards education.
• Know the educational reality of Latin America and how to respond from the perspective of the charism.
• Space for strengthening experiences and enriching our work.
• Share ideas and strategies on how to enrich the Vincentian charism among children and adolescents.
• To be able to share with people with more and or similiar experience and to be able to help others.
• Grow in the Vincentian charism and strengthen ourselves in this area so that we can communicate this charism to our students and colleagues.
• Space for bold initiatives that transform the reality of the poor through the exchange of innovative initiatives that respond to the needs of today’s society.
• Share experiences to live the Vincentian charism to serve better.
• Share educational experiences that help us better serve the entire educational community from the perspective of the  Vincentian charism.
• A meeting place to share experiences and our spirituality in order to encourage others to serve the poor.

Next, Father Fernando asked us to share (in no more than 3 minutes) our expectations with regard to this Confraternity:

• Julio Castellanos stated that he would like to share experiences among all to enrich the work and, on the other hand, spoke about the importance of working together with regard to the creation of a Vocational culture.
• Beatriz Cano, from Clorinda, told us that, as a result of participating in Vincentian meetings, she feels that this is an opportunity to seek common guidelines for the transmission of the charism to young men and women.
• Sister Maritza shared that this is a beautiful initiative to globalize Vincentian education in Latin America. In this way we can share our goals and guidelines and experiences as we are challenged by the reality in which we live and minister.
• Delma agreed with what had been said and expressed her concern about communicating the charism to children. She also spoke about the importance of continuing to help those most in need both materially and also spiritually.
• Alejandro Quijano stated that the Charism in the Honduran schools is not as strong as it should be and that this space could help strengthen and promote the charism.
• Sister Milagros Serrano told us that her intention was to share a plan to embody our charism in a secularized society.
• María Gómez said us that she wanted “to soak up” the richness of the charism in order to communicate that charism to the students. She also spoke about her joy being a part of this group.

Father Flavio then spoke about aspects that he wanted to highlight:

[1] His joy in seeing so many participants from Latin America who had an openness and a desire to interact on an international level.
[2] Greater joy in listening to the participants speak about their desire to learn from one another
[3] There is present an expressed desire to share experiences with educators on other countries (for example in Spain and other countries)

Father Flavio also suggested that we speak about the frequency of these meetings and the day and time for our next gathering and state our preferences in the “chat room” … it seemed that Thursday and Friday were the better days and so we decided to meet once again on Friday, August 21, 2020 at 16:00 hours.

We concluded by offering a prayer to our Blessed Mother for this opportunity to gather together.

If a Vincentian educator would like to join this group, please make that request known to: Father Fernando Sánchez, CM (pf44tnch@gmail.com) who will then send you a link that will enable you to connect to the group at the time of our next meeting.