ASIA/AFGHANISTAN - The "School of Peace" grows, where Afghan children learn how to welcome

Thursday, 4 July 2019 education   school   peace   human rights   human dignity   children  

Kabul (Agenzia Fides) - The "Tangi Kalay - School of Peace", an institute founded in 2005 on the initiative of Fr. Giuseppe Moretti, Barnabite missionary in the Afghan Islamic Republic from 1990 to 2015, has an extra 10 classes in a new building that will welcome 500 children. This is what, in a note sent to Agenzia Fides, says Father Giovanni Scalese, Barnabite priest, currently at the head of the Missio sui iuris in Afghanistan, and highlights that, thanks to a fundraiser curated by Father Moretti, it was possible to respond to the request of the school director, providing 250 two-seater desks. The "Tangi Kalay - School of Peace" is a state institute, with programs and teachers chosen by the Afghan government, but which continues to live with private aid, including those donated by various military contingents, which help the school by providing school materials scientific and IT laboratories. Today the institute is home to over 3,000 children and aims to teach them the values of peace and acceptance.
It will be the founder of the School of Peace to replace the person responsible for Missio during the summer holidays, in the month of July: Father Moretti will then return to Afghanistan after four years. Father Scalese tells us: "When we proposed the replacement to Father Giuseppe Moretti, he responded with great enthusiasm. All the people who knew him during his mission years will also be happy to see him again".
In Afghanistan, Islam is recognized as a State religion and conversion to other faiths can be seen as a crime of apostasy: for this reason, actions to help the needy represent the only possible form of mission. The Catholic presence was admitted at the beginning of the twentieth century as a simple spiritual assistance within the Italian Embassy in Kabul and raised to Missio sui iuris in 2002 by John Paul II. Today the mission continues to be based in the diplomatic structure and is entrusted to Barnabite father Giovanni Scalese. There are also the sisters Mother Teresa of Calcutta and the inter- Pro Children congregational association of Kabul in the Afghan capital. (LF) (Agenzia Fides, 4/7/2019)



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