About Alboan
We are the Jesuit NGO of international cooperation in Euskadi and Navarra
Mission
We work to build a global citizenship that promotes socio-environmental justice and gender equality
Together with other people and organizations we aspire to transform the structures that generate exclusion at a local and global level and to promote new social and economic relations.
We deploy our mission in alliance and are part of various networks and platforms, especially those linked to the Society of Jesus at a local and international level.
"We work to build a global citizenship that promotes socio-environmental justice and gender equality"
Our collaboration focuses on the following causes
The last two causes, the promotion of gender equality and the strengthening of participation and global citizenship, are transversal to all the others.
Forced migrations
Socio-environmental Justice
Right to education
Gender Equity
Citizenship and participation
Why do we do it?
Our identity is inspired by the way of Jesus of Nazareth and his Gospel, founded on human rights and rooted in the Jesuit mission that promotes faith and justice. Therefore, we aspire to have a courageous, committed and coherent response, which has at its center the dignity and reconciliation of people and nature.
ContactVision
To respond to the challenges that the context poses to us and continue making significant contributions to the work of building citizenship and social transformation, in the coming years we commit to working to achieve an ALBOAN:
Transformer
Because it offers viable and concrete alternatives that promote new gender relations, a culture of hospitality, activities for generating income and responsible and sustainable consumption habits.
That makes visible and denounces
the links between human rights violations, forced displacement, environmental degradation and our lifestyles, offering comprehensive responses from the local to the global dimension. Translated string (English)
On network
As an active member of the platforms in which it participates, offering its experience as a catalyst for nascent processes and contributing its capabilities as part of broader networks.
Innovative
Both in the educational methodologies it offers for the construction of a global citizenship that promotes hospitality and equity, and in the implementation of multi-actor initiatives that involve new social and economic agents in promoting the development of excluded communities.
Recognized
for its social and political impact, for the quality of its work in the just causes it promotes and for its roots in Basque and Navarrese society.
Sustainable
for the mission, with a motivated and committed team that deploys ways of doing things based on support and with diversified financing supported by a renewed and active social base.
Values
To make this Mission a reality, we especially cultivate the following traits
Excluded and violated people
Those who inhabit the borders occupy the center of our action and we are close to them emotionally and effectively. They give meaning and encouragement to what we do and their causes constitute a central criterion in our decisions. Closeness to excluded people strengthens us and confirms us in the mission.
Mutual accompaniment
Our way of acting is characterized by mutual support both with the people on our team and with the allied organizations with which we work. We understand this accompaniment as a shared path of listening, dialogue and permanent support, in which both parties enrich each other and challenge each other in what we are and what we do.
Path to spirituality
We give channel to spirituality and the dimensions of meaning that animate us, because we are aware that in them arise the convictions and motivation to collaborate in the construction of a culture of solidarity and justice. We constitute ourselves as open spaces for people of diverse spiritualities and cultures. From the tradition of the Society of Jesus we use common discernment to make decisions, following the criteria of “greatest need”, “greatest fruit”, and “most universal” good.
Hold hope
We actively work to sustain hope, both in prophetic denunciation and in the search for creative and innovative alternatives. We want to live with joy, celebrating and giving thanks for so much good received on a personal and institutional level. We are committed to promoting transformative communication that transcends the instrumental and aspires to configure new realities and open horizons.
Professionalism
We seek the highest quality and professionalism in our work through critical evaluation, training, continuous learning, reflection and in-depth analysis. We develop a culture of transparency that, beyond the legal obligations of accountability, encompasses the communication of policies, strategy, activities, results and evaluations that derive from the entity's work.
Solidarity Community
To carry out this mission, we dream of being a Community of Solidarity that seeks internal coherence between what it does and what it is, cultivates spirituality, solidarity and trust with a simple lifestyle in harmony with its environment. Diverse and welcoming community, which invites participation and volunteering in the construction of democratic and supportive societies. Committed to people and communities who live on the borders of exclusion.
Roots
The territories of the Basque Country and Navarra have a long tradition of missionary and international cooperation
Hundreds of Jesuits from these autonomous communities have dedicated their lives to the service of people from other lands, other cultures and other religions.
The roots that feed ALBOAN
The roots that feed the tradition and good work that ALBOAN is part of are largely those of the different Mission Secretariats:
In 1949, relations began between two provinces of the Society of Jesus: Gujerat (India) and Loyola.
From the beginning, numerous Navarrese, Gipuzkoan and Aragonese Jesuits were assigned to the Gujerat region, which gave rise to special ties between both provinces.
In 1960 Gujerat had become the sixteenth autonomous state of India. It is at this time when the Secretariat of Missions of Gujerat has a greater boom, develops its structure and begins to significantly support the Province of Gujerat.
The work carried out during these years has completely transformed the region. Tens of thousands of people have received an education that until then was reserved for certain castes. Productive projects have stopped the emigration of the poorest to the cities, the installation of wells and pumps has transformed agriculture, dairy cooperatives have become the hope of hundreds of hitherto marginalized communities.
Today, more than twenty thousand girls and boys from the most marginalized classes study in schools supported by the Gujerat Mission.
Fe y Alegría is a “Movement of comprehensive popular education and social promotion” whose action is aimed at impoverished and excluded sectors to enhance their personal development and social participation.
It was born in Venezuela, in 1955, to join forces in the creation of educational services in depressed areas. The bold vision of the founder – the Jesuit José María Velaz – and the collaboration of numerous people and organizations, managed to crystallize a work of rich history and future projection. The Movement has spread to Ecuador, Panama, Peru, Bolivia, El Salvador, Colombia, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Paraguay, Argentina and Honduras and has begun its journey in Africa.
At this time, the number of participants in the different educational and social promotion programs exceeds one million students. More than a thousand educational centers, 40 radio stations, 850 distance education centers and more than a thousand alternative education and service centers are managed and animated.
It is an education movement because it promotes the formation of people who are aware of their potential and reality, free and supportive, open to transcendence and protagonists of their development.
It is a popular movement because it assumes education as a pedagogical and political proposal for transformation from and with the communities.
It is a comprehensive movement because it understands that education encompasses the person in all their dimensions.
And it is a movement of social promotion because, faced with situations of injustice and the needs of specific subjects, it is committed to overcoming them and, from there, to the construction of a just, fraternal, democratic and participatory society.
The Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) was established in 1980 as a spiritual and practical response to the refugee situation in the world at that time. Given the massive increase in forced displacement in the 1980s and 1990s, the Society of Jesus has repeatedly reaffirmed its commitment to the cause of refugees.
The Jesuit Refugee Service works in more than 40 countries, with the mission of accompanying, serving and defending the rights of refugees and forcibly displaced people. The mission entrusted to JRS includes all those who have been separated from their homes by conflicts, humanitarian disasters or human rights violations, in accordance with Catholic social teaching that defines multiple categories of refugees as “de facto”. people.
Its activities include pastoral care programs, child and adult education, medical care, social and counseling services. Each project is designed to address local needs taking into account available resources.
ALBOAN and JRS have a framework collaboration agreement.