Maison de Paix, RDC
The UNESCO Chair on Education for Human Development and Solidarity Among Peoples, in collaboration with Scuola di Alta Formazione "Educare all’Incontro e alla Solidarietà” (Università LUMSA – Roma) and other SCHOLAS Chairs (Scholas occurrentes, Fondazione Internazionale di Diritto Pontificio), supports the project “Maison de Paix” which aims to build a training center in Kikwit, Democratic Republic of Congo. The project is promoted by Associazione S.F.E.R.A. Onlus, established in Brescia in 2011, which has highlighted three main social challenges of the local population: healthcare, training and humanitarian assistance.
Kikwit is a diocese with 4 million inhabitants, located 500 km from Kinshasa. The project provides for the building of a multifunctional educative center for local population with a nursery school, a training center - one for women and one for men - besides a clinic and other service structures. The UNESCO Chair contributes to the project through these actions:
- international conferences on education;
- promotion of international exchanges between students in Brescia and teachers from “Maison de Paix”;
- promotion of the “training of the trainers” who will work at “Maison de Paix”;
- organization of a “summer camp” addressed to children.
Mission in January 2020
In January 2020 the working group of the Unesco Chair, led by Prof. Simeone, went on a mission to Kikwit, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the Maison de Paix project works for the construction and the start-up of a Center for training and human promotion.
The mission also offered the opportunity to implement a Service Learning project which, by connecting the San Pio X nursery school in Sarezzo (Brescia, Italy) and the Maison de Paix school, made it possible to fulfill the desire of boys and girls to engage in dialogue with each other and reflect on the importance of cultural diversity at over five thousand kilometers of distance.
Here the story of Vera Brunelli, the student who promoted and implemented the project.
Here the video on the Service Learning project at Kikwit.