Fe y Alegria: diploma for 27 young people and adults in Rome
On Sunday 30 October, in Rome, 27 young people and adults from Latin America graduated from IRFEYAL, the Institute of Fe y Alegria Roma, reaching an important milestone in attaining a qualification equivalent to an Italian high school diploma that will open the doors to education and the work force in Italy.
For more than 21 years, Fe y Alegria Roma, in collaboration with Irfeyal Ecuador, the Pontifical Gregorian University and numerous volunteers, most of them from different religious orders, have been offering a semi-boarding education programme with lectures on Thursday afternoons and Sundays.
“The students in this class come from Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Honduras; more than 75 per cent of them are women, aged between 19 and 66. It is a great joy to be able to contribute to their further personal and professional education, so that they can have a better life,” says Magali Alfaro, director of Fe y Alegria Roma.
Present for the event were the Vice Consul of Ecuador in Rome, Sara Lucía Oña, the Consul General of Peru in Rome, Mr Álvaro Gonzalo Martínez Boluarte, a representative of the Consulate General of Colombia in Rome, Mrs Manuela Gómez and Ms. Diana Ortegón, member of the Programme “Colombia nos Une en Italia” and president of the Association “D.I.D.I Divertimento Intrattenimento Didattica Innovazione”.
The graduate who excelled, Yensi Dallani Martínez Hernández, a young Honduran, thanked the Institute and the teaching staff for giving her the opportunity to continue her studies in Italy. Likewise, the Vice Consul of Ecuador, Sara Lucía Oña said, “it was exciting to see a young mother with her baby among the new graduates”.
Ms. Diana Ortegón said, “we strongly support Fe y Alegria’s activities in Italy because its educational project offers young people and adults the opportunity to have a better life and achieve the goals they set for themselves when they emigrated to Italy. Through this promotion we have financed nine scholarships in Italy”.
Fe y Alegría is a global Movement of popular education and social promotion present in 22 countries. Its objective is to make effective and real people’s right to education for personal and community transformation. In Italy, the Fe y Alegria Italia network which is made up of the social cooperatives Fe y Alegria Roma, Fe y Alegria Milano and Fe y Alegria Genova, collaborates with the IRFEYAL Institute and other training courses.
Fe y Alegria Italia is a member on an international level of the Fe y Alegria International Federation and the Jesuit Education Foundation (a network of Ignatian schools in Italy, Malta and Albania).
