Guatemala - Solar panels for the Vocational Training Centre: thinking of development, respecting creation

27 September 2016

(ANS - Guatemala City) - The Salesians of the Fr Bartoloné Ambrosio Vocational Training Centre serve 300 young people through courses and workshops in carpentry, electrical training, information technology, industrial welding and milling. The energy costs for all of these services are very high and limit the possibility of investment, maintenance and refurbishment of equipment. For this reason the Salesians have decided, in line with the ideas offered by Pope Francis in the encyclical Laudato Si, to meet their energy needs in a natural way that helps the environment and reduces costs.

 

The solution is the use of solar panels, devices that require a fairly high initial investment, but which can ensure a better impact on the environment. If the use of such devices was more developed, it certainly would be beneficial for the common home of all.

The Bartoloné Ambrosio Vocational Training Centre is a Salesian educational community made up of lay people and Salesians, which trains young people in Guatemala so that they can enter the labour market, offering some specializations. Following the educational principles of Don Bosco, they educate young people in technical competencies and entrepreneurship, as well as in life skills, in order to affect positively their own lives and the situation of the country.

Their training includes not only the technical area, but also the promotion of sport, music and personal development, offering each young person an integral development which guarantees "good Christians and honest citizens" for eventual employers and for Guatemalan society.

With the purchase and commissioning of the solar panels not only will they have a clean and healthy environment, but it may also convey an additional educational message concerning "an ethical choice, based on the solidarity of all peoples" (LS, 172) .

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ANS - “Agenzia iNfo Salesiana” is a on-line almost daily publication, the communication agency of the Salesian Congregation enrolled in the Press Register of the Tibunal of Rome as n 153/2007.

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