The promotion, protection and defence of the rights of children and young people, the beneficiaries of our mission, is a priority for the marist institution. In 2011, the Marist Institute invited all administrative units at the international level to equip themselves with tools to ensure the protection of minors.
From the Marist educational works, we strive to ensure that the rights of children and young people are respected, to denounce any violation, and to provide appropriate responses to the different needs. In this context, we promote a change of outlook in order to find new and creative ways for children and young people to know and participate in their rights.
In the Marist Region of Europe, the Child Protection Team has been operating since 2016 with the responsibility of deepening joint work, sharing resources, promoting synergies between provinces, sharing processes of reflection and concretisation of provincial policies and protocols, as well as developing processes of awareness-raising, training and empowerment of children, adolescents and adults. The team is currently continuing its work within the context of the Marist Region of Europe, with a european interprovincial framework to move forward as a global family. Its leaders define it as an exciting, hopeful, motivating and complex challenge.
Too often the rights of children and young people are violated. And they have also been violated within our institution. In this context, during the XXII General Chapter in Medellín (Colombia) in 2017, the Marist Institute reaffirmed its commitment to the Declaration to the victims and survivors of abuse, in which it said the following:
“We support the work that, in recent years, has been carried out in the Marist Institute to protect children in our institutions, be they schools, social works or other services. This work has been done, above all, by demanding that Child Protection Policies be implemented in all parts of the Marist world, as well as through training and awareness programmes to prevent the recurrence of child abuse in our institutions”.
The Marist Region of Europe makes this commitment to ensure, through specific actions, that all children and young people feel safe and protected.
