Advancing Solidarity: A Global Marist Commitment to Child Rights
The Marist International Solidarity Foundation (FMSI) has submitted 13 new Marist Projects of Solidarity, reinforcing the Marist Institute’s commitment to stand alongside children and communities living at the margins of society. Rooted in a multiannual, results-oriented approach, these initiatives focus on some of today’s most complex and fragile contexts—Madagascar, Maicao at the Colombia–Venezuela border, Chad, Nigeria, India, Cambodia—especially in areas where poverty, displacement, exclusion, and weak protection systems intersect.
At the heart of every project is a clear priority: placing human and child rights at the center of action. The projects respond to the realities of children facing multiple forms of vulnerability, including children with disabilities, migrant and displaced children, children with no access to education and children from ethnic minorities. Beyond service delivery, each initiative is designed to strengthen dignity, participation, and long-term resilience—ensuring that solidarity translates into lasting change.
Most of the projects are implemented within school settings, recognizing schools as key spaces for protection, inclusion, and the promotion of child rights. In several African countries, this work is carried out in close collaboration with the Secretariat of Education and Evangelization through Youth Empowerment Clubs, which strengthen young people’s participation, leadership, and human rights awareness.
A defining feature of this new portfolio is its strong advocacy component. Alongside community-based action, all projects contribute evidence, voices, and lived experiences to advocacy efforts at national and international levels. Together with the Secretariat of Solidarity-CMI, FMSI amplifies these realities within UN human rights mechanisms, helping ensure that policies and recommendations reflect the daily lives of children at the peripheries and that duty-bearers are held accountable.
This work is made possible through long-standing partnerships. Misean Cara stands among the Marist Institute’s strongest allies, having supported solidarity initiatives and emergency responses for more than a decade. This partnership, together with the Marist Brothers of Ireland, has been instrumental in enabling sustained, multi-year engagement—moving beyond short-term interventions toward measurable outcomes and systemic impact.
Together, these 13 projects reflect a shared vision: solidarity that is strategic, rights-based, and transformative. By combining grassroots action with powerful advocacy, and by treating children not only as beneficiaries but as rights-holders and agents of change, FMSI, the Marist Brothers institute and its partners continue to push for a world where the most excluded children are seen, heard, and protected—both on the ground and at the global decision-making table.
