On Sunday 30 October, in Rome, 27 young people and adults from Latin America graduated from IRFEYAL, the Institute of Fe y Alegria Roma, reaching an important milestone in attaining a qualification equivalent to an Italian high school diploma that will open the doors to education and the work force in Italy.

For more than 21 years, Fe y Alegria Roma, in collaboration with Irfeyal Ecuador, the Pontifical Gregorian University and numerous volunteers, most of them from different religious orders, have been offering a semi-boarding education programme with lectures on Thursday afternoons and Sundays.

“The students in this class come from Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Honduras; more than 75 per cent of them are women, aged between 19 and 66. It is a great joy to be able to contribute to their further personal and professional education, so that they can have a better life,” says Magali Alfaro, director of Fe y Alegria Roma.

Fe y Alegría is a global Movement of popular education and social promotion present in 22 countries. Its objective is to make effective and real people’s right to education for personal and community transformation. In Italy, the Fe y Alegria Italia network which is made up of the social cooperatives Fe y Alegria Roma, Fe y Alegria Milano and Fe y Alegria Genova, collaborates with the IRFEYAL Institute and other training courses.

Fe y Alegria Italia is a member on an international level of the Fe y Alegria International Federation and the Jesuit Education Foundation (a network of Ignatian schools in Italy, Malta and Albania).