In 2002 the Socio-educational Proposal "Educating in Difficult Times" began in America with the commitment to promote quality education, humanizing and transforming, for everyone, inspired by Poveda’s pedagogical thought.

 Starting at that time many initiatives and activities developed in each country where the Teresian Association is present. The aim is to review and update pedagogical frameworks and to create new programs and actions taking into account the current context and strategic lines of the proposal. Because of this, a movement of educators has been generated.

Presentation

When Pedro Poveda, a young priest, full of dreams and enthusiasm, began his evangelizing action in the caves of Guadix in the early twentieth century, he could not imagine the future development of his intuitions and projects.

Throughout his life, these early ideas, these first projects to articulate evangelization, education and social advancement, were maturing, acquiring different rootedness and developments. His dreams, projects, and actions, seed sown on good ground has borne much fruit. Because when the seed falls on every piece of land that welcomes it, the seed becomes one with the land and, without losing its deepest identity; as it germinates it acquires the wealth of the land where it has been planted.

The prophetic intuition of Pedro Poveda, born out of the reality of Guadix, and of the wide and deep look at the society of his time from the mountains of Covadonga, is a seed and a fundamental point of reference for the development of what we now call the socio-educational proposal of the Teresian Association.

"I I have my mind and heart in the present moment.” "I want human lives." "True Humanism”. "Value justice as much as life" "Give me a vocation and I will give you back a school, a method and a pedagogy." “With the spirit I place knowledge and I consider that both spirit and knowledge constitute the essence of the Asociation." "Until Christ be formed in you" ...

I invite each and everyone, every teacher, every educator who lives his/her educational task like salt in the style of the early Christians, teams in different contexts that put their energies into creating educational environments where people grow, to continue their task. Let us continue at this time of crossroads, in the school Poveda, allowing him to speak to our hearts, and that we may hear the words that will bring out each day in the joyful and difficult situations, the light and strength that sustains us in the daily task of daring to educate.

It has been one hundred years ... We enter into a new millennium. The seed sown in Guadix is ​​now present in different parts of the world. In Europe, America, Africa, and Asia. In different countries, peoples and cultures. In each of these realities it is generating life, much life, much dynamism and generosity in the continuing search for projects and actions that articulate evangelization, education, and social advancement.

Almost 75 years ago, in 1928, this seed was planted in America. First in Chile, and slowly it germinated and grew in different countries. Today it is also present in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, the United States, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, Dominican Republic, Uruguay, and Venezuela. In each country there have been new socio-educational projects that have developed inspired by that seed. In Latin America, a real network of experiences and projects, encouraged for years by the Council for Culture of the Teresian Association, has been established, as well as opportunities for exchange, deepening and mutual support. The awareness that unity and diversity need eachother is becoming increasingly stronger and more rooted.

It is harvest time. Let the seed penetrate again into our best life energies with its transforming and mobilizing force. Different teams are being challenged. In Cochabamba (Bolivia), in a conference organized by the Council for Culture in 1998, the idea emerges: we have walked a lot, projects have worked through their identity and specificity. It is time to build together the Socio-educational Proposal of the Association in Latin America. The teams are launched. It has been four years of intense collective work, locally and across the continent, advised by specialists in education, with educational seminars and conferences in different countries. With the efficient and generous contribution of Poveda Cultural Center of the Dominican Republic.

Today Latin America wants to give Pedro Poveda, in the year we celebrate the centenary of the beginning of his evangelization in the caves of Guadix the fruit of your dreams, we dare to say.

This proposal, Educating in Difficult Times, an expression inspired by Poveda, wants to be a reference point for all social and educational projects, for each educator, for each educator in Latin America that is committed to the educational and evangelizing action promoted by the Teresian Association. It also wants to be a contribution to the dialogue and exchanges with centers and projects in other countries and continents.

May Pedro Poveda make fruitful the educational work of each of the centers and social projects in the continent and help us make his words alive: 

“Our works give testimony and speak with unmatched eloquence about what we are" (1919)

Loreto Ballester Reventós
President of the Teresian Association
Los Negrales, July 28, 2002

Web of the Socio-educational project http://pseitperu.blogspot.com.es/