Rome (Italy). On 3 March at 18:30 (Italian time) the 5th appointment of “Salesian Thursdays at Auxilium”,
organized by the FMA Studies Center. Sr. Monica Tausa, Daughter of Mary Help of Christians from Columbia, will speak about “Sr. Onorina Lanfranca: a pioneer of kindergartens”.
Degreed in pedagogy and departed for Colombia as a missionary, Sr. Onorina Lanfranco (Valfrenera, Italy 1872 – Medellín, Colombia 1948), exercised a notable influence on the educational and formation imprint of teachers that the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians assumed in the Latin American Countries.
The education of the little ones was from the first years of the presence of the Salesian religious women in the Country, a charismatic option that marked the mission. The nurseries and Kindergartens of the FMA rapidly multiplied in a context in which the institutionalized assistance for little children passed from the care of instruction, or better still, to education with evident social repercussions.
Starting with the Preventive System, Sr. Onorina Lanfranco succeeded to establish a dialogue between the Catholic pedagogical tradition with the postulates of modern pedagogy, without abandoning its religious identity. Its principal argument was the experience generated by the Kindergarten (maternal Institute) of Mary Help of Christians School of Medellin, where she developed her pedagogical activity and became a pioneer with an authoritative voice in the education of young children of the city.
The presentation of Sr. Monica Tausa, in the context of the 150th anniversary of the Foundation of the FMA Institute, helps to recognize the role of Sr. Onorina in the history of Colombia and of the Institute and to find in the experience she promoted, the clues for the reconstruction of the Salesian pedagogical style in early childhood education.
Source: pfseauxilium.org
