Adolfo Sillóniz González, Global Catholic School Relations Manager at Grupo SM, shares with educators from our global community the « Vademecum – Global Compact on Education ». A handbook for implementing the Global Compact on Education, created by the Congregation of Catholic Education.

The Vademecum is available in 5 languages:

English: Vademecum – Global Compact on Education

Spanish: Vademecum – Pacto Educativo Global

French: Vademecum – Pacte Éducatif Global

Italian: Vademecum – Patto Educativo Globale

Portuguese: Vademecum – Pacto Educativo Global

Here is an introduction to this handbook written by His Excellency Mgr. Vincenzo Zani, Secretary of the Congregation for Catholic Education.

« This Vademecum is a handbook for implementing the Compact on Education and is intended above all for educators who must guide children and young people, through educational and extracurricular, formal and informal courses, in building our common home.

For some time, Pope Francis has been insisting on the need to invest everyone’s talents to bring about a new universal solidarity and a more welcoming society. In his many messages, especially the one on 15 October 2020, he renewed the invitation to make a pact on education that would allow us to find global consensus for an education that is able to create an alliance among all human dimensions. Between school and life; among generations; among teachers, students, families, and civil society with all its intellectual, scientific, artistic, sporting, political, entrepreneurial, and solidarity-based expressions in support of the younger generations.

In the face of the ‘educational catastrophe’ caused by the pandemic, which has exacerbated an already alarming educational gap, simplistic solutions are not enough. To educate is to challenge and give hope to the present that breaks determinism and fatalism; to educate is always an act of hope that calls for co-participation and the transformation of the logic of indifference into a culture of encounter and inclusion. Education must help us to build a future that is no longer marked by division, by the impoverishment of thinking and imagination, but one based on listening, dialogue, and mutual understanding.

The Vademecum takes up the seven commitments indicated by Pope Francis. Each of them can become an educational path to be developed through reflection, the development of projects responding to the various local challenges and their concrete implementation. Stories and personal and community experiences may emerge, capable of inspiring others to share them and thus embark on a process of change, inspired by the culture of care, integral ecology, and the building of fraternity and peace. Such experiences may be collected by the Commissions of the Bishops’ Conferences and submitted to LUMSA University (eis.ricerca@lumsa.it).

It is necessary to trust and invest in the potential of young people to help them look ahead with confidence together. » + Angelo Vincenzo Zani, Vademecum – Global Compact on Education