Adding efforts and knowledge, with well-defined objectives and goals, the Education Course in Emergencies and Humanitarian Responses was implemented, promoted by the Fraternity – Humanitarian Missions (FIHM), in partnership with the Escola Superior de Educação de Paula Frassinetti (Portugal) and in collaboration with the Centro Universitário Frassinetti do Recife – UNIFAFIRE (Brazil) and the Escola de Magistério Santa Doroteia do Lobito (Angola).
The training took place between March 2nd and April 30th, in a hybrid way, with online meetings and two face-to-face meetings that brought together three continents represented by Brazil, Portugal and Angola, breaking down borders through the exchange of knowledge and multidisciplinary experiences that accompanied all the meetings. The Escola Superior de Educação de Paula Frassinetti, the Centro Universitário FAFIRE and the Escola de Magistério Santa Doroteia do Lobito, which are part of the network of the Congregation of the Sisters of Santa Doroteia, have exchanged knowledge with each other, actively supporting the training and coordinating classes, as well as receiving training from professionals from other countries.
“I highlight the richness of this intercultural dialogue with fellow professors from other countries, experiencing intense and diverse problems, which also allows us to listen to real experiences of facing problems and look at our realities in a different way, at the same time that we learn from those who have already developed skills,” commented Ana Paula Lourenço de Sá, professor at UNIFAFIRE.
The importance of education in emergency situations
The Education in Emergencies and Humanitarian Responses course trained humanitarian volunteers, students and professionals in the areas of Pedagogy, Literature and Health according to the humanitarian principles that govern the international response to crisis situations, bearing in mind that education and health complement each other, generating possibilities that can encompass the whole.
“It is very necessary that, in the educational field, there is knowledge of educational approaches aimed at overcoming trauma so that the individual, child, adult, or even adolescent can experience a healthy process of overcoming it; that the trauma, or that situation, does not represent a scar, which in the future may interfere with their journeys in life,” highlights the general manager of the Fraternity – Humanitarian Missions (FIHM), Friar Luciano.
José Luis de Almeida Gonçalves, director of the Escola Superior de Educação de Paula Frassinetti (Portugal), recalls that “the right to education is a basic human right, even in emergency situations.”
José Paulino Peixoto, professor at Centro Universitário Frassinetti in Recife, coordinator of the Pedagogy course at the university, shared that participating in this training inspired him to reframe the meaning of his presence/existence in the world.
The course addressed theoretical topics related to the promotion and deepening of knowledge about emergency situations and humanitarian crises at a global level and the awareness of participants to the direct and indirect impact of emergency situations and humanitarian crises on societies and, therefore, on educational contexts.
“Taking into account the situation the world is experiencing today, especially in some concrete realities, the education course in emergency situations and humanitarian responses is very important, because it awakens compassion, to feeling for the other, being attentive to situations of emergencies in everyday life and try to provide an effective response,” says Mariquinha Fátima, teacher at the Santa Doroteia do Lobito Teaching School.
Far beyond borders
In addition to theoretical knowledge, the course sought to contribute to the improvement of pedagogical intervention practices in the context of crisis and emergency by sharing humanitarian experiences in the missions developed by the Fraternity – Humanitarian Missions (FIHM).
Regarding the sharing of experiences in the course, professor José da Costa Undangala highlighted that “the format in which the thematic approaches are conducted, the personal and collective experiences shared openly, the opinions issued and debated in the groups freely end up serving as therapy, especially for me who has already experienced several traumatizing situations, as well as offering the possibility of contributing this knowledge in educational programs to the educational community, where I am inserted.” José da Costa is the Pedagogical Deputy Director of the Paula Frassinetti School Complex in Angola.
Júlio Gonçalves Pedrosa dos Santos, professor and coordinator of the Center for Global Education and Cooperation at the Escola Superior de Educação de Paula Frassinetti, envisioned important developments that, from now on, may arise with the course. He highlighted that “this training and the partnerships that are about to be established through all the institutions involved, bring to light the global challenges that education faces, particularly for those who live in crisis and emergency situations in the various geographies of the world, which according to the United Nations are about 222 million, but they also show a coherent and solid commitment of wanting to work and cooperate together in favor of a less unequal, more just and peaceful world”.
The instruction and exchange of experiences lived in the course touched, in addition to the minds, also the hearts of those who had the opportunity to complete the training, which leaves the responsibility on each one to be a multiplier of knowledge and practices internalized, as expressed by Teresinha Zélia Pinto de Queiroz, a psychologist who participated in the course: “the old has become new, new colorful and light clothes. So the course flew, it spread its wings in the blue sky of my life. I will not leave indifferent to the purpose of this meeting, a meeting that marked my life, a meeting that will define new directions, a new look, new options for looking at the other as myself, with all the differences and similarities present in our essence.”
