It continues to be a privileged time to commit ourselves to the GLOBAL EDUCATIONAL PACT that Pope Francis continually insists on: “… As you know, there are seven essential commitments in the global educational pact that is being promoted. Seven commitments that I want to synthesize into three specific lines of action: Focus, welcome, involve.
To focus in what is important, it is to put the person at the center, in «their value, their dignity, to highlight their own specificity, their beauty, their uniqueness and, at the same time, their ability to relate to others and with the reality that surrounds her." Valuing the person makes education a means for our children and young people to grow and mature, acquiring the skills and resources necessary to build together a future of justice and peace. It is essential that the objective is not lost sight of and dissipated in the means, in the projects and in the structures. We work for the people, they are the ones that form the societies, and these are the ones that structure a single humanity, called by God to be the People of his choice.
To achieve this, the reception. This means listening to others, to the recipients of our service, children and young people. It implies that parents, students and authorities —the main agents of education— pay attention to other types of sounds, which are not simply those of our educational circle. This will prevent them from closing in on their own self-referentiality and will make them open up to the cry that springs from every man and from creation. It is necessary to encourage our children and young people so that they learn to relate, to work in groups, to have an empathetic attitude that rejects the throwaway culture. Likewise, it is important that they learn to safeguard our common home, protecting it from the exploitation of its resources, adopting more sober lifestyles and seeking the full use of renewable energy that is respectful of the human and natural environment, while respecting the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity and the circular economy.
The last line of action is decisive: to imply. The listening attitude, defined in all these commitments, cannot be understood as a mere hearing and forgetting, but rather has to be a platform that allows everyone to actively engage in this educational work, each one from their specificity and responsibility. Involving and getting involved means working to give children and young people the possibility of seeing this world that we leave them in inheritance with a critical eye, capable of understanding the problems in the field of economics, politics, growth and progress, and to propose solutions that are truly at the service of man and the whole human family from the perspective of an integral ecology. "
