After the earthquakes that affected Venezuela in June, the Venezuelan Church launched a response aimed at addressing a dimension that goes beyond the material emergency: the support of children and adolescents whose daily lives have been disrupted, their educational spaces and their family environments.
Through the project «Talita Kum», the Center for Culture, Education, and Communication (Center CEC) of the Permanent Secretariat of the Venezuelan Episcopate (SPEV) coordinates teachers, psychologists, specialists, and other volunteer professionals to develop Open Classrooms in shelters and safe community spaces.
The initiative takes its name from the evangelical expression Talita Kum, which can be translated as “I speak to you, get up”. For the CEC Center, this name expresses the purpose of accompanying childhood and adolescence in an emergency context, helping them recover spaces for learning, meeting, and hope.
More than 100 volunteers for a comprehensive response
From the first calls, the project began to add professionals from different fields. The volunteer network exceeded 100 people, including educators, psychologists, university students, and specialists linked with pedagogical, recreational, psychosocial support, and logistical tasks.
The work began with a territorial diagnosis aimed at identifying areas with greater needs, especially those where there are educational institutions affected or families that remain in shelters. Based on this assessment, volunteers are organized considering both their geographical location and their professional competencies, with the goal of adapting the response to the needs of each community.
The Open Classrooms are conceived as spaces for training and support to prevent the emergency from deepening the interruption of educational processes. But the proposal is not limited to recovering school content: it also incorporates emotional, recreational, and spiritual dimensions.
Education in emergency: learning also in the midst of crisis
One of the pillars of Talita Kum is the so-called Emergency Education, which aims to generate alternatives when the usual educational structures are affected by a disaster situation.
In the first orientations of the project participated the Rev. Willians Costa, SchP, director of the CEC Center, and Dr. Carlos Calatrava, from the School of Education at the Andrés Bello Catholic University (UCAB), who presented methodological foundations for this modality of accompaniment.
Subsequently, in the first training meeting aimed at the volunteer teachers, taken place on August 5 at the headquarters of the Venezuelan Episcopal Conference in Caracas, Prof. Eli Manterano, a specialist in Education in Emergencies and a volunteer from Eastern Caracas, delved into the tools that will be used in the fieldwork. His presentation addressed aspects such as planning, territorial diagnosis, monitoring, and impact evaluation, along with the use of technological resources to support the work of the teams deployed in the different regions of the country.
Caring while accompanying
The preparation of the volunteers also includes an essential dimension for the Church: the protection of children and adolescents. During the training meeting, Erika Uribe de Gibson, secretary of the Office of Support to the National Commission for the Prevention of SPEV, presented the institutional framework for the prevention and attention to situations of abuse within the Venezuelan Church.
The training placed special emphasis on the principles of Good Treatment and Child Safeguarding, which should guide the operation of the Open Classrooms and the parish spaces where the project will be developed.
In this way, the initiative aims for the response to the emergency not to be limited to offering educational activities, but that guarantees care and protection conditions for childhood and adolescence.
“Play heals”
The support proposed by Talita Kum also incorporates playful and artistic activities. Under the premise “Play heals”, these dynamics offer children and adolescents tools to express and manage their emotions after an emergency experience.
The project also contemplates listening and guidance spaces aimed at parents and caregivers. The intention is to provide tools that help families to cope with the stress generated by the situation and contribute to the reconstruction of community bonds.
Thus, the Open Classrooms are proposed as places where education, recreation, emotional support, and pastoral dimension can meet in a single response.
Church that supports in the places of the emergency
The proposal of the CEC Center aims to bring the presence of the Church to where families find themselves after the earthquakes: shelters, communities, and other safe spaces enabled for the care of the affected individuals.
During the first training meeting, participants maintained an exchange between those who attended in person and those who connected from different dioceses. The dialogue allowed for projecting new training days in the use of the necessary tools for working with communities.
The Episcopal Commission of Education and University Pastoral, along with the CEC Center, keeps the call open for teachers, psychopedagogues, university students, and professionals from different fields who wish to join this volunteer network.
The initiative stems from a conviction: while the physical reconstruction of the communities may require a long process, human support and the recovery of hope need to start now.
More information: WhatsApp (Messages only): 0424-1979247
Email: culturaeducaycomunica.spev@gmail.com
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