ARGENTINA-
On Friday October 15th, a general agreement was signed between the Universidad Pedagógica Nacional (UNIPE) and the Evangelic Church of Río de la Plata, the Waldensian Evangelic Church of Río de la Plata, the Evangelic Church of Christ’s Disciples, the United Evangelic Lutheran Church (sponsors of the Ecumenic Net of Teologic Education Programme – REET), and the Argentine Methodist Church. “The event of getting the library back and count with the possibility to research and offer a training proposal in alliance with a public and free university like UNIPE is a very big step for the ecumenic project of teologic education wich the REET Programme seeks to implement,” says Dr. Daniel Beros, REET general coordinator, in an interview with the Communication Team of the Waldenian Church.
Here is the interview to Beros:
How was the signing of the agreement finally achieved?
-When the decision of closing down the ISEDET was made, the associate churches undertook the commitment to invest their Library with a new institutional framework so it could keep serving to the ecumenic education and the people in general. This search took place initially with the effort of the churches themselves with different proposals which were evaluated, but which lead to nothing. In this context, people from the UNIPE showed interest in reaching some kind of agreement that made it possible to link the library to the university. The churches were made aware of such interest and evaluated it.
As a result of this evaluation, a round for discussing technical aspects was established between representatives of UNIPE and the churches. On the side of the churches, I myself was entrusted with this task as well as miss Silvia Giacomini, academic counsellor of the REET Programme. The fruit of this work done in 2020 was the development of a general concept supported by three pilars which define the abovementioned essential guidelines of the future specific entries, which will be rubricated following the agreement to be signed this Friday.
The subscribers to the agreement are the churches involved, on one hand, in their capacity of Library owners (Waldenian Church of Río de la Plata, Evangelic Church of Río de la Plata, and the Methodist and Lutheran Churches), plus one further church, Christ’s Disciples, as a part of the REET Programme.
This framework makes it possible for each party to link our educational projects and for the future REET Fundation to have an office at the headquarters of the university, as well as the right to use the clasrooms for lessons and courses.
In particular, what does this agreement to be signed on Friday mean for the REET?
– I want to higlight that this agreement will be signed by the churches, who own the Library. The churches which sponsor REET, which keep rooting for a quality teologic ecumenic education, are still in the process of obtaining the oficial legal identity for the Programme. The event of getting the library back and count with the possibility to research and offer a training proposal in alliance with a public and free university like UNIPE is a very big step for the ecumenic project of teologic education wich the REET Programme seeks to implement.
What changes will there be after the signing in the way REET was being implemented?
-The activities in which REET takes shape as of this agreement will be implemented progressively because, before the signing of the specific document creating the Library, the university stil has work to do in the closure of the works of building where the material will be kept, and all this will take at least a year. Then, at the same time of the opening and after the signing of the second document, what follows is the opening of the Documenting Centre and the start of the interinstitutional research programme. While we aren’t a university yet, this development will contribute to build the basis for it to become a reality. At the same time, the agreement will allow to broaden the existing schedule based on the decision of cooperation in the academic area between the UNIPE and the churches sponsoring REET.
Does this step entail a greater commitment with REET on the side of the churches?
– Yes, it will be necessary to mantain the commitment after the signing of the agreement, assuming certain resposibilities established by such.
Who attended the event on Friday?
-UNIPE authorities, lead by their director and authorities and representiatives of the signing churches.
Finally, I want to thank the authorities of the churches for trusting me to represent the goals and interests of the Riverplate ecumenic protestantism by collaborating in the technical aspects round which worked to arrive to this agreement. And also highlighting once more its importance, given that it lays the basis that will allow to rescue an invaluable treasure such as the library of the former ISEDET, considered, because of its quality and size, the most important protestant document corpus of university level in Latin America.