Leer en castellano…GNRC in Brazil moves forward with agreements to implement Ethics Education (EE) and the Day of Prayer and Action for Children (DPAC).
On June 1 and 2, GNRC held two meetings in the cities of Sao Paulo and Brasilia respectively, at the offices of Children’s Pastoral Services, the organization that coordinates GNRC in Brazil. Given the country’s geographic extension, GNRC will gradually grow by creating groups in different cities to expand the work around the country. At the moment, DPAC activities have branched out to include different geographic regions (Brasilia, Porto Alegre, Sao Paulo, Recife and Belem), and there are plans for a first stage to extend Ethics Education to four cities.
Meetings were held in order to finalize agreements among the representatives of different religious communities regarding the implementation of both programs, and specifically DPAC-2011, and workshops on the use of the Learning to Live Together Manual. Attending both meetings were GNRC Brazil Coordinator Clovis Boufleur, and the Coordinator for Latin America and the Caribbean Mercedes Roman.
The agenda at both meetings included revising the plan for the Ethics Education program. Its implementation in the short term will make it possible for conditions to be right to develop the program in four cities in the center and south of the country, including training people at two workshops, one in Brasilia and the other Port Alegre. As for DPAC, it is expected that the next one in November 2012 will surpass the number of cities compared with last year, and interfaith participation at the events will increase.
The interfaith composition of GNRC participants in Brazil has also been strengthened in the process. At the Sao Paulo meeting there were 20 people from the following religious communities: Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, as well as the presence of ecumenical entities such as CLAI and CONIC. Nineteen people participated at the Brasilia meeting from the following communities: Catholic, Lutheran, Buddhist, Spirita, and Afro-spirituality; also attending this meeting were representatives of CLAI and CONIC.
Along with achieving a greater degree of exchange and agreements on the two programs with the participating religious organizations, our presence in Brasilia was an opportunity to further the interfaith dialogue on Ethics Education with UNESCO, and get conversations up and going at the Ministry of Education and the General Coordinator of Religious Diversity, a forum that operates under the auspices of the National Secretariat for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights.
Mercedes Roman
