Religious Community:
The Murialdine sisters settled in Mexico City on February 13, 1998. Ten years later, on August 2008, when the formative community in the city of Aguascalientes, Aguascalientes State was opened, sister Terezinha Militz and sister Maria Guadalupe Lopez Ramos with three other novices were selected for its foundation.
So now the Murialdine community of Mexico City is formed by sister Petra Galindo Saucedo, sister Maria Teresa Gaspar Gaspar and sister Cecilia Dall'Alba, who are in charge of the running of Leonard Murialdo Educative Centre.
Besides the daily engagement from Monday to Friday within the CELMA, the sisters work in youth ministry, social ministry and evangelization, and are part of the Murialdo Family nucleus in St George Martyr Parish, run by the Josephites.
The community house is at San Juan de Aragón Colony, a suburban area of the big Mexico City, near to St George Martyr Parish.
Where is the Educative Centre:
The educative centre is in the central of Narciso Bassols quarter, with about 1300 families, in the San Juan de Aragón Colony. The children and the families cared for come from this vicinity and its surroundings: the “Lost City” (favela) and from the emarginated areas close to the airport, all of them within the Federal District. But there is also a great number coming from neighbourhoods near to the Federal District.
Goals of the Educative Centro:
the Educative Centre aims to welcome children and boys from low income and at risk families. There are 226 children from 3 to13 years old who attend daily, so that their parents – above all the single mothers – can go to work sure that their children are guarded and cared of. It is also given help and financial support for the formation of the young alumni of the educative centre and to a group of single mothers.
Educators:
To carry out the socio-educative plans the sisters have a team of 14 teachers, mostly with higher certificate or getting it. A specific formation in the contents, spirituality, style and pedagogical principles inspired from Murialdo is given through one-week or two-week intensive courses.
Spiritual and religious dimension:
The Centre gives priority to the Murialdine spirituality dimension, which is expressed not only through specific activities (weekly hour of education to faith, celebrations and prayers ...) but also in everything surrounds the educative Centre: goodness, mercy, tenderness, Jesus’ predilection for the little ones and the poor, presence, staying with them, sharing…", service to the children in the name of Jesus ... We are convinced that this dimension is visible in all what we do.
Activities:
Daily there are three levels of activities:
- Children aged 3 - 7: integrated activities leading to growth through alimentation, hygiene, health, socialization, games, recreational activities, singing, dance, group dynamics, drawing, painting, religious education, homework ...
- Children aged 8 - 9: sport, tuition for homework, theatre, painting, handicraft, first elements of music, folk dance, informatics and ecologic activities ...
- Children aged 10 - 13: tuition for homework, Mexican regional dance lessons, advanced music course (guitar, keyboards, drums ...) informatics course ....
For all the levels:
Formation in human and Christian values, sport training and competitions, food (breakfast and lunch for the morning shift, lunch for the afternoon shift); participation in the festivals of music, choral singing, dance, theatre ... Participation in quiz competitions on general knowledge, at the internal level and with other institutions, monthly walk to see historical places, archaeological zones, entertaining parks; sporadic watching movies, comedies, circus... Celebration of birthdays, Easter, Christmas, Murialdo; special weeks: Children’s Easter, Children’s week, Murialdine week, Christmas’ week.
Actions with single mothers:
The first support we give to the single mothers is to receive their children at the Centre, so helping them to go to work unworried. They are also helped with the basic food provision from the Social Ministry, with a help to start small businnesses and shops (stalls of homemade food, selling simple items, clothes or shoes ...) and other forms of support according to their kind of problem: psychological, juridical, health ... But the most important things is to offer them a place where someone will listen to them, and take care of their hard reality of having to carry out alone the responsibility of educating their children and the housekeeping.
Relationship with the milieu:
It happens through the ties coming through Leonard Murialdo IAP or through bonds born from Sisters’ initiatives:
With the “Commission for Private Care” in support to the grant requests for the projects of help and formation of educators and operators;
With IASIS (an organ of the Federal District) supporting social projects;
With international agencies, especially the projects of distance adoption promoted by the Josephites and the Murialdine Sisters with the Italian communities;
With Lateinamerika Selingestaadt, Germany, with some study grants for the children so that they can pursue their formative and academic course.
With the “Associazione Comunità Nazareth”, San Venanzo, Italy, through the presence of volunteers in the fields of instruction and health, and a financial support.
With the Lay people of Murialdo Family of our Parish group, and with other private citizens who offer services or gifts ...
