Foundation of Restorative Justice
Facilitators: Ângela Beatriz Gauer – Social Worker
and Sister Lusineide Cardoso de Melo, Religious and Psychologist
On the 17th and 24th of February 2024, the members of the Pastoral Peace Center of the Diocese of Jataí/GO, promoted the first module of the Workshop of the SCHOOL OF FORGIVENESS AND RECONCILIATION – WAIT – FOUNDATION OF RESTORATIVE JUSTICE.
The group of participants is made up of lawyers, teachers, Catholics and people of other religious denominations. They expressed interest in the proposal of the School of Forgiveness and Reconciliation (ESPERE) – Foundation of Restorative Justice, due to their professional activities, in which they are faced with many conflicts in relationships and other situations, arising from people's coexistence, seeking an alternative that help them resolve these conflicts and restore good coexistence and peace.
The first module is an introduction to everything that will occur throughout the thirteen modules. The participants demonstrated themselves to be motivated and open to accepting the proposal and during the experience of this first moment, they were already identifying that the method used by ESPERE can be applied in all instances of human coexistence, ranging from the most hostile environments – such as prisons, to the school and family environment, in coexistence with the neighborhood, work environment, with groups of catechists, those being catechized and others. To alleviate and repair the damage caused by disagreements, and resolve the aforementioned conflicts, it is only necessary to have someone who has gone through the experience proposed by the ESPERE workshops, and the conflict will certainly be resolved in a fraternal and humanizing way.
In fact, the Espera workshops are one of the suggestions of the 2024 Fraternity Campaign, to reestablish and strengthen the bonds of “Social Friendship”. It says: “Implement and value the Schools of Forgiveness and Reconciliation (EsPeRe) – cf. BASE TEXT -CNBB p.71 letter K. – and also suggests that we get to know EsPeRe, by accessing the link: https://esperebh.wordpress.com/atividade/.
For us, Workshop Facilitators, starting this class is a way of expressing the experience of what the 2024 Fraternity Campaign calls to us: Fraternity and Social Friendship, motto: “You are all brothers and sisters” (Mt 23:8).
Sr. Lusineide Cardoso de Melo-sjbp
