Through an integral formative process, the Space of Peace has as its mission to be an instrument for the promotion of a culture of Peace and also to be a place to educate children and young people in places of high social vulnerability due to poverty.
The social project promoted by the Shalom Community aims at children and young people from 6 to 18 years old. Pedagogical activities are carried out with a multidisciplinary team composed of teachers, volunteers, and missionaries. The educational offer includes the study of foreign languages, school reinforcement, teaching through parables and inspiring stories, testimonies, group dynamics, sharing, and creative-literary workshops.
For teenagers and young people, there are also basic computer courses, Enem (national high school exam through which young people can enter a university) preparatory courses, as well as robotics, aesthetics, agricultural and fishing techniques classes, besides professional qualification activities and handicraft, sewing and cooking workshops. There are also activities for the families of the young people assisted.
Oasis of Mercy – Space of Peace – Chaves
Inaugurated in 2022, the Space of Peace in Chaves is located in the Flor do Campo neighborhood. For 27 years the Shalom Catholic Community has been present in the island, but with the implementation of the Space, the activities have gained newL momentum. Dilma França, missionary who has lived in Chaves for almost 13 years, affirms that the Mission is “irresistible”. “The Space of Peace has been a dream for more than ten years, and it has finally come true. When we touch on it, there’s no way you can’t get involved, get emotional, fill your heart with joy, and, above all, with gratitude to God and to all the brothers and sisters in the community, and also those outside, who directly or indirectly contributed to make this dream come true”.
Breno Teles, one of the young people assisted by the School, testified, in an open letter addressed to the educators, his gratitude and the fruits of his educational path. These educators, who taught us much greater values than the world could ever teach us, values such as humility, mutual respect, and so many others. They taught us that we are a family, that in the face of everything we can count on each other. Above all, they taught us that we can see God in everything, whether in sports, through the care and well-being of others, because the body of another is also a temple of the Holy Spirit, or even in the Environmental Education classes where we learned that God created everything, and left it for us to take care of it in the best way possible.
The conviction that moves the program and development of the Space is that Peace is a diffuse experience: having been touched, the desire then arises to communicate it, and thus, consequently, the construction of a world of Peace begins.