A spiritual and fraternal coexistence before the end of the studies in the Boys' Town, Augustinian Recollects, Costa Rica. September 2022.

For years, the City of Children, a socio-educational center of the Augustinian Recollects in Costa Rica, has offered its final year students a whole series of activities to value the time they have spent in the institution. One of them is this spiritual farewell.

Every year around a hundred of the more than half a thousand students of the Children’s City reach the end of their stage in this socio-educational institution of the Augustinian Recollects in the outskirts of Cartago, Costa Rica. The last course implies not only leaving the institution, but also entering adult life, either by carrying out higher studies or entering the world of work.

Like any other educational center, a big graduation ceremony is held to see them off. But in addition, the City of Children proposes other activities from the last quarter of the year that serve to reinforce the values learned and the creation of a bond that, already as former students, allows these young people to develop their adult lives without feeling unaccompanied.

One of these activities is the fraternal and spiritual coexistence in which all of them strengthen the ties through coexistence, prayer in common, games… It takes place outside the Institution itself to allow a new environment and the exit of the usual routine encourages the beneficiaries to live this moment with more intensity.

On September 23rd, accompanied by 14 adults to cover all their food and organization needs, the twelfth-year students from the Ciudad de los Niños moved to the Hacienda Valverde in El Yaz de Paraíso.

There they were able to enjoy a whole day full of educational, recreational and spiritual proposals. The director, the Augustinian Recollect Jesús María Ramos, began the day with a prayer and an incentive to “live a pleasant day and with disposition, putting God first and putting everything in his hands.”

There were dynamics of relaxation and a rally with challenges of all kinds, physical and intellectual. The “most and best” awards were also given, the result of a survey of the students themselves, who chose the best among them in multiple aspects, many of them based on good humor, such as the “most sleepy” award.

There was also time for two spaces for reflection in common and a prayer also lived in a fraternal way. Finally, they received a shirt with everyone’s signature and a series of letters of encouragement from those who have been their teachers and monitors.