Silvia Pompa Fernández
Responsible of Communication District of ARLEP
The 2020-21 academic year is officially here, and aware that we are already living a “new normal” after the atypical closure of the previous year, we Lasallians have started this year with renewed strength and with the usual enthusiasm with which we face every challenge. This is because we are committed to a mission which is ongoing and which continues to provide experiences that make us grow as the great Lasallian family that we are.
The value that guides our reflection this academic year is responsibility, and the slogan chosen to mark the journey of these coming months is “And you, what do you choose?” It is, without a doubt, a question that appeals to us, and it calls us to think about how the free decisions we make should be consistent with our human and Christian values and with the way we understand life and live those values out, always having the Gospel and Jesus of Nazareth as points of reference.
Responsibility, freedom and choice are the parts of a very powerful whole that we have to know how to put at the service of transforming our world in order to make it a better place. We must be able to reach out to others, and to make our hearts beat strongly in order to give the best of ourselves each day and to try to fly like butterflies to discover new horizons that make us grow and where those most in need are the central focus of our mission. Education is one of the most powerful tools with which reality can be transformed and a more just and caring society can be built.
This academic year is a new opportunity for us Lasallians to be part of the miracle of being willing to change things and to make everything we propose come true, and to do this, as always, together.
We Lasallians in the ARLEP District appeal to your sense of responsibility to be the protagonist of change and of a different kind of school that is lived out in our classrooms, to be the protagonist of a comprehensive educational program that endorses the idea that by transforming education we transform the world, and that today it is a reality thanks to the New Learning Context (NCA). Our founder, Saint John Baptist de La Salle, inspires us, because he also felt responsible for caring for the most vulnerable, he looked at the reality that surrounded him, he was moved by it and he offered a response based on education in order to change his surroundings.
Welcome to the new academic year!
The Arlep District includes Spain and Portugal, where the District has 116 educational works, of which 98 are schools, 15 are socio-educational works and 3 are universities. In the educational works the District serves more than 80,000 students thanks to more than 6,000 educators, of whom about 120 are Brothers.
Within the District we also have one-hundred Lasallian communities, in which 613 Brothers are integrated together with 250 Associates and other Lasallians.
Justification of the slogan and explanation of the graph
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