“Education is Hope": the title chosen for this year's Tent Campaign is stretched between two poles: education, which for AVSI is the necessary condition for sustainable and lasting development, and hope, which is what holds us up and allows us to live fully in all circumstances, even the most dramatic ones.
From working in countries wounded by conflicts and crises that tend to become chronic, we believe that development is not something that can be imposed from the outside, nor is it reducible to the provision of assistance, which can result into forms of welfarism.
Development calls for joint actions, it is a long path that can only be taken together, and it begins where the possibility of true education opens up. Where within a personal relationship, the person is accompanied to discover his or her own irreducible dignity and the good that is the other. Hence, development for AVSI is possible only through such an education that is capable of setting the person, even the most vulnerable, in motion.
The 2024-25 Tents Campaign invites us to support projects that, built on this educational approach, concretely nurture, day after day, the hope of children and youth, women and men, families and communities.
In Uganda, the Meeting Point International and the Luigi Giussani Schools are places of continuing education for hundreds of children and youth. In Ecuador, the Sembrar Foundation supports Venezuelan refugees, offering them shelter, integration and training. In Cameroon, the Edimar Center cares for the young people most in need and accompanies them in finding their place in the community. Also in Ukraine and Italy, the Emmaus Association welcomes those fleeing war, bringing comfort and opportunities for growth. In the Holy Land, the educational programs of the Jerusalem Patriarchate are a key resource for new generations of Palestinians. And finally, in Lebanon, now facing another deep crisis, the Fada2i Center promotes educational activities in the South, keeping hope alive that peace and reconstruction will eventually follow this emergency.
The Tents Campaign is articulated, as it has been for decades now in Italy and around the world, in a series of events and meetings in schools, companies, universities, leisure venues, and parishes. Initiatives that invite everyone to donate to support our projects, but also to get personally involved in this work of raising awareness and opening to the knowledge of countries too often forgotten.
We hope that each meeting in turn will generate others, to remind us that we can all contribute, each as much as we can, to create fair development.
Let us not remain spectators of this Campaign, let us become its protagonists.
Education is hope for children and families far away, and for us.
