Escola Nacional Florestan Fernandes
Photo: MST
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
SÃO PAULO, Brazil – The Landless Workers Movement (MST) inaugurated on Sunday the school Florestan Fernandes created by the movement. The school is located at the city of Guararema, 60Km (37.282 miles) from São Paulo and is about 30,000 m 2 {\displaystyle m^{2}} . Its estimated cost was about US$ 1,3 million, the money coming from the European Union, NGOs from France and Germany and the MST’s own finances.
The inauguration was attended by the Brazilian Minister of the Agrarian Development Miguel Rosseto, Venezuelan Education and Culture Ministeries delegates, the writer Fernando Morais among other international guests.
According to the MST the proposed courses for the school are: professorship and pedagogy (teaching), collective administration expert, general farming, movement leadership, and Human and Social Sciences.
João Pedro Stédile, a leader of the MST said:”This school is for taking the power for the workers. So that the friends transform the scientific knowledge into instrument of liberation and not of exploitation, as they do.”He also said: “Our enemies are the large farmers, the imperialism, the multinationals, the bankers, the capitalist exploitation and the ignorance. Against them we fight.” According to him the school has an ideological function.