PILGRIM in Dialogue with Sustainability and Spirituality

120 121 homily, he referred to Feast of Christ the King and the care for the created world. The final item on the day’s agenda was an integration meeting in the 'Gość Niedzielny' hall. On Sunday, 25 November, after breakfast, the meeting participants went back home with the thought that as people of this earth we are merely pilgrims, our journey will end one day, but the goal is to leave a clean, beautiful, and healthy space for the next generations to live in. The European Youth Meeting in Katowice was of great significance as it expressed the youth’s responsibility for the fate of our planet. While it did not yield binding decisions, the environmental manifesto developed by the youth, representing the message of young people from Europe gathered at the European Youth Climate Summit – PILGRIM, is nonetheless an important voice that should reach the inhabitants of the Earth and resonate continuously. Dr Natalia Maria Ruman University of Silesia in Katowice PILGRIM Ambassador in Poland Historical Background of PILGRIM in Pszczyna It is never the case that when a person does good to another, they are only the benefactor. They are simultaneously gifted, bestowed with what the other one accepts with love. St John Paul II The International Education Network PILGRIM, in which the Pszczyna school participates, is characterised by activities that encompass the ideas of ecology, economy, and social care, all of which combine spirituality with education and upbringing. Sustainability, present in the PILGRIM message, aims to achieve a sustainable quality of life for present and future generations through the integration and proper proportions between spiritual, economic, ecological, social and institutional-spatial factors. The Karol Miarka School Complex No. 2 in Pszczyna is a recognised institution with a long-standing tradition. The year 2015 marked the 70th anniversary of its functioning. During this period, the school underwent many changes. As an institution of learning and raising new generations together with their parents, it has important tasks to fulfill – to instill in the growing youth proper moral, Christian, civic, and patriotic attitudes, to educate students as citizens who know their history, attached to culturally, historically, and environmentally important regions – as included in the School's Educational Programme. The current state of the school sets an optimistic tone for the realisation of these tasks for both its students and staff. Thanks to such concrete actions, our students can actively and consciously participate in social life, and their efforts are not only a form of fulfilling the mentioned tasks but also shaping intellectual skills necessary for critical analysis of reality and expanding civic attitudes. An important date for the K. Miarka School Complex No. 2 in Pszczyna was the 19th of November 2015, when representatives of the PILGRIM network prepared a working schedule of activities for the school. Six months later, on 21 March 2016, the 1st International Conference on the project "Via sacra Pszczyna - economics - ecology - spirituality as a form of education" took place within the walls of the School Complex, implementing the assumptions of the PILGRIM idea. In its guiding slogan "Living Consciously – Giving Future," PILGRIM combines education for sustainability with its religious-ethical-philosophical dimension. The conference was an attempt to invite reflection on current problems in educational theory and practice and innovative work of teachers. The conference’s subject matter, due to its content profile focused on the person of the teacher and the diversified planes of their functioning, was addressed to academics (theorists, researchers) dealing with the preparation of teachers to optimal professional role fulfillment and supporting them in achieving increasingly higher standards of professionalism. The recipients of this scientific exchange of thoughts also included representatives of school governing bodies, heads of educational institutions, cultural-environmental institutions, as well as theorists and practitioners who have in mind the good of innovative education and training in the spirit of PILGRIM. The meeting meeting served as a presentation and summary of the activities undertaken during the implementation of the project "Construction of the Via sacra path of Pszczyna and its surroundings" as a form of catechetical-ecological education. The organisers assumed that the specialised meeting would contribute to the tightening of scientific cooperation between various centres. Thorough considerations allowed drawing the conclusion about the necessity of searching for new unconventional models and theoretical foundations for making educational choices. On this occasion,

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