Catholic NGO brings education where roads can’t reach

Romereports.com “Bringing education to where the asphalt ends” is the motto of ‘Faith and Joy’, an educational movement that since 1955 has provided training to adults who for one reason or another weren’t able to complete their education.

MARÍA LUISA BERZOSA GONZÁLEZ
Coordinator, Faith and Joy (Rome)
“It started with a Jesuit working in a parish with some university students and found that there were many children, like in much of Latin America, that had no school and are in the street. And there was a worry for finding a place to welcome them, where to teach them, and to give them an education.”

Today they are in 18 countries, in places such as Chad, Spain, Italy, and much of Latin America. Since 2003, they have been giving classes and advice to immigrants in Rome at the Pontifical Gregorian University.

Many adults attend after work to receive their Bachelor of Commerce and Management Sciences, and specializing in Computer Science. The university is open to anyone who would like to further their education.

MARÍA LUISA BERZOSA GONZÁLEZ
Coordinator, Faith and Joy (Rome)
“I believe that societies are transformed by education and professional training. Because it means that the person not only needs to be nourished, having a home and rights, but education gives them a voice and a dignity restored. It’s to have self-esteem, self-conquest in many values that people already have but that without education, they’re sleeping.”

‘Faith and Joy’ also organizes workshops, retreats and celebrations that are attended current and former students, because for many of them their training doesn’t end in the classroom.