Práticas de Educação Popular de religiosas inseridas : um estudo em ONGs na Arquidiocese da Paraíba

Abstract

Consecrated Female Religious Life underwent a significant change with the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), a milestone in the transformation of the new way of being and doing church. In the 1970s, motivated by Liberation Theology and the Basic Ecclesial Communities, many nuns settled in peripheral communities. From this experience, the Small Inserted Communities emerged as an alternative for proximity to the popular classes. With the process of democratic reopening in Brazil and the conservative pontificate of John Paul II, religious women were challenged to rethink their practices and actions. They saw in Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) the possibility of legally guaranteeing the permanence of social projects, as well as becoming vehicles for renewed pastoral, social and educational action. For them, these organizations are understood as spaces committed to social causes, in the defense of human rights, which welcome and bring together diverse social actors. The main objective of this study was to investigate the popular education practices of nuns who live in Small Communities Inserted in the Popular Environment and who assume leadership in NGOs within the Archdiocese of Paraíba. The following question was adopted as a problematization: Is there a specific popular education practice of nuns who are in the leadership of NGOs within the Archdiocese of Paraíba? This is a qualitative research, with a theoretical-methodological approach to popular education as a critical epistemology, anchored in the methodological principles of Oral History and Memory, through observations and semi-structured interviews. The participation of nuns in popular environments, NGOs, integrated communities and popular education is something quite relevant in the history of education in Paraíba. From this perspective, the role of nuns as popular educators became something new thanks to a liberating educational practice committed to transforming society. Thus, we confirm the thesis that these religious women who act driven by Christian conviction, imbued with the desire to transform society through education, are also responsible for establishing a new practice of popular education.