San Miguelito

"San Miguelito," is a traditional mission of evangelization of our young farmers in the Diocese of San Ignacio de Velasco. There usually reside around 100 young students from some 30 rural communities of the Diocese, to be trained as leaders, to be educated as bachelors and trained to work in various industrial branches. Now with the presence of Catholic University of Bolivia-Chiquitos (Universidad Católoca Boliviana – Chiquitos) the San Miguelito begins to be a Centre of Higher Education.
 
This missionary project, with the motto "pray, work and study," has formed over the 45 years many of the leaders of the Region of the Great Chiquitania. Many missionaries, volunteers and teachers have dedicated their lives, among them are:  the Good News Sr. Gertrudis Richmund, P. Cortezón Elias, Mr. Roberto Gutierrez, and Fr. Isidro Laso M.Id.

San Miguelito, the Agricultural Boarding School, is located 22 km from San Ignacio de Velasco, capital of the Province of Velasco, Department of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia. The school is located 2 km from the divergence from the San Ignacio-Santa Cruz high way, which has 20 km from San Ignacio. As the roads are made of mud and are in a poor condition it would take some 30-40 minutes of drive from San Ignacio. Santa Cruz is located about 480 km from the school. Usually there is regular transport between San Ignacio - Santa Cruz, although during the rainy season the travel is bit difficult. The school zone is surrounded by 15 small rural communities with a total population of 5,000 people. The largest community has 1,000 inhabitants. Youth attending the school come from these and other distant communities.

The education is offered almost free for the students (They only pay 15% of the actual cost). The school provides lodging, meals, study materials, teachers, basic medical care, sports and recreation. Because, these students usually come from poor families of small communities and they usually depend on agriculture, hunting, fishing or work in the estates for their daily life.  It is, therefore, very difficult to determine the average salary of these families. And still money is used very little in this area. Under this economic subsistence it can be seen that the families of the students do a great sacrifice to allow their children to enter the school, for even the children are seen as the workforce of the family. These students contribute to the maintenance of the center with their work in the workshops of production (cattle production, agro-ecology, agro-industry, construction techniques and ecotourism), who are trained theoretically and practically for four hours a day, until they get a degree in a basic technology in one of these fields and have experience in all of them.

The students come from the following ethnic groups: Chiquitos, Guarayos, Quechua, Aymara, and others. The local ethnic groups (Chiquitos and Guarayos) are organized into small rural communities of 10 to 40 families, engaged in subsistence agriculture, hunting and fishing. Quechua and Aymara students come from various communities through a project sponsored by the Diocese. They are from the Andean highlands, especially Potosí, who have been in misery as many small mines were closed that were the traditional wealth of the area.

A significant number of the students come from poor families where mothers are the head of the family. This means that any improvement in the social advancement of our students have a direct impact on their mothers and sisters.

Having completed the basic education needs of rural communities of the Great Chiquitania for 45 years, the current projection of Agricultural Boarding School-San Miguelito looks forward to become a center of higher education in the context of the Catholic University of Bolivia, Chiquitos (UCB -Ch). Its technical training workshops will be gradually transformed into Research Centres, Technology Transfer, Extension and Services (CITTES) as a model of a university for the remote areas.

This great  mission that  D. Rielo Fernando Pardal († 2004), founder the school and of various such institutions, has left to the world as a contribution inspired by Jesus Christ and his Gospel, will undoubtedly contribute to the restoration of a society that increasingly has serious signs of crisis and spiritual, cultural, political and economic depression.