CLAYSS visits Colombia

During the last week of September, our director Nieves Tapia, and Sebastian Villar, from the Uniservitate team, travelled to Colombia, where CLAYSS has developed partnerships, programmes, and activities for more than a decade. In Bogota, they met with the authorities of CELAM (the Latin American Episcopal Council) to discuss publishing and training projects . They also visited Xavierian University and were welcomed by the USR/SL team, part of the LATAM hub of Uniservitate. In a constructive and intense dialogue, educators in charge of some of the most outstanding SL projects presented their progress and posed questions and difficulties.
At the same Xavierian University campus, there was a meeting with the members of the Colombian Service-Learning Network, with representatives from different universities and organisations, some in person and others online. Nieves reviewed Colombia’s service-learning history and the development of regional and national networks in recent years. He also stressed the need to record and provide documentation of the actions and projects carried out.
During their stay in Bogotá, Nieves Tapia had a warm conversation with the current Colombian Vice-Minister of Education, Óscar Sánchez (with whom we worked for several years during his tenure as Director of EDUCAPAZ, the National Education for Peace Programme ), to explore possible ways of collaboration regarding the Colombian school social service and other matters of common interest.
The second stage of the trip was in the city of Barranquilla, where the XIX Congreso Nacional de Educación Católica de Bogotá [19th national congress of Catholic education of Bogotá city] took place at the San José School, whose central theme was “El aprendizaje-servicio, identidad de la escuela católica [Service-learning: identity of the Catholic school]”. More than 400 participants from all over the country attended the event. Specialists from Colombia and other countries spoke about service-learning about the Global Compact on Education, the evaluation of projects and other related topics. Nieves Tapia gave a presentation on the relationship between service-learning pedagogy and the Teachings of the Church.