This book contains some astonishing accounts of successful educational

schemes undertaken to help the young persons in five continents and in

very different cultural contexts. The reader should find these accounts

thought-provoking: they highlight both new and old challenges, and offer

hope for the future.

They were written by teachers with hands-on experience in extreme

conditions. They describe their work among the Aborigenes in Australia, the

Gypsies in France, the slum-dwellers of Nairobi, amid the violence of

Colombia, at the meeting-point of different religious cultures in Asia ; their

promotion of the minority cultures of the Maya and Papuan peoples, of the

young black and Latino migrants of Chicago or Philadelphia; and their

commitment of universities to the social transformation of the population.

Working in extreme conditions and in an educational situation which was

always precarious, they were inspired by a humanitarian concern and a sense

of citizenship rooted in the Christian faith.