LOCATION: San Ignacio, Misiones Department
DURATION: 12 months (project end March ’14)
APPLICANT: ASeS – Solidarity and Development Association
LOCAL PARTNER.: ‘San Isidro Labrador’ Agro-Ecological School (CEASIL).
The goal is to reduce poverty levels in the Misiones Region of Paraguay. The San Isidro Labrador agro-ecological school is the answer to this issue. It, in fact, aims to develop a process of education that, in addition to transforming the person, determines an economic, social and cultural environment that can contribute to the construction of a new society, improve living conditions in the rural environment within just and supportive relationships, and improve production with sustainable and diversified agriculture and by introducing appropriate technologies. This is what the school wants to teach from adolescence onward to peasant children. In summary, the San Isidro Labrador agro-ecological school has as its overall objective to offer integral training (human and technical) to young people (male and female), children of small farmers for the benefit of their families and communities in order to increase their existing potential and obtain real participation in the construction of a more just and supportive society. This “liberating” education enables the development of critical awareness, self-esteem and improved productions. Specific goals aim to give human dignity to farming families through:
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cultural improvement of the children of humble farmers who lack economic resources for their education;
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Improving the technical ability of young people to cultivate and raise low-country animals;
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Application of technologies in family farms to overcome subsistence agricultural production;
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Rationalization of crops for the food improvement of their families;
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engagement of young people for their self-advocacy in both the training stage as well as the implementation stage of activities in the school, family businesses and internships at local agricultural cooperatives.
