Theme: The heart of Don Bosco … the heart of our education and promotion of human rights today.
Proclaiming Christ as promoter of human rights, with Don Bosco's heart.

workshop
Pisana, 18-19 January 2007 – from 15.30 to 18.30

Aim
Awareness, as SF, of the importance of educating ourselves and educating to discovering that in Christ we find the true roots of our dignity and all human rights

Written on a poster, in the workshop, the opening sentence of the RM's Strenna:

“The Spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for he has anonted me. He has sent me to bring the good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives and to the blind new sight, to set the downtrodden free, to proclaim the Lord's year of favour!»
(Lk 4, 18-19)

Getting to know one another and voicing our experience

Presentation of participants through a simple dynamic, as chosen by the moderator

Events

(In hall, written: “Christ is everyone's right”. Under this the moderator places a comment, in view of the aim: “in Christ each person finds the roots of his or her own dignity and all human rights”)

Group divided into 4x4 (or 5x4 according to numbers) and each to begin with:
- A time when I was challenged concerning what is the the basis of human rights and their promotion.
- A time when I felt compelled to defend the human rights of a person
- The elements of this experience
· Who/what compelled me?
· What slowed me down?

After listening to each one's re-telling the sub-group picks just one of these for discussion in the whole group and writes down the characteristic elements on a post-it pad.

Give word to the words

Sheet on which is written: Lk. 4,18-19: “He has sent me to proclaim good news to the poor”.
(Moderator offers a brief comment, spening a little time with v. 18.
Possible comment from John Paul II's homily to Catholics in Bengal 4 Feb 1986: “Who are the poor in our time? The Gospel speaks of “the blind”, of “prisonersi” and the “oppressied (Lk 4, 18). The poor are all those who live without the necessities for physical or spiritual existence. Besides, in today's world, there are millions of refugees who have had to leave their country, and millions more, sometimes whole tribes and peoples, exposed to the threat of total extinction by drought and famine. And who can ignore the poverty and ignorance of those who have never had the chance to study? Or the absolute impotence of so many people faced with injustice and underdevelopment? And there are so many who have been deprived of their right to religious freedom and suffer immensely because they cannot worship God according to the dictates of their own conscience. Our times face various kinds of moral poverty, threatening the liberty and dignity of the human person, like the poverty of those who live without understanding the meaning of human life, the poverty of an erroneous or wrong conscience, the poverty of destroyed or separated families, the poverty of sin”.

II session

Understanding the theme more deeply

(Through a PPT the moderator shows the parallel between Luke's passage, quoted in the RM's Strenna, and the Strenna itself, making some reference to the discourse on the Beatitudes, such as for example the Beatitudes as an appeal to respect people's rights, from which we can draw out some of today's rights for people. Example: Blessed those who work for peace. But is peace a right? etc.)

Reflection grid for the moderator to be used for the workshop group while watching the ppt:
- Why is Christ everyone's right?
- How can we say that the Beatitudes are human rights today?
- How do the Beatitudes express this?
- Which human rights can we draw from the Beatitudes?
- How is the Christ of the Beatitudes the basis and promoter of the human rights he announces?

Then divide into subgroups to reflect on these two questions:

- Today, as a SF, how can we educate ourselves, and educate others to live the Beatitudes and to recognise Christ as the basis and promoter of human rights?
- What practical choices to make, as a SF, to ‘live’ and proclaim Christ as promoter of human rights?

From the choices that emerge, choose two to discuss with the whole group so as to offer a proposal, then, to the Salesian Family at the conclusion of the work.