Origins
In 2004, within the renewed commitment of the Italian Province of the Society of Jesus to the educational apostolate, the project of a Formation Centre for the Educational Activity of the Jesuits of Italy takes shape, indicated in early documents with the acronyms FAEGI or CeFAEGI. Its birth responds to a decisive transformation of Ignatian schools: the progressive decline of direct Jesuit presence in the colleges and the growing responsibility entrusted to lay teachers, leaders and collaborators. In this new context, formation could no longer be thought of as mere professional updating, but as an essential place to guard, transmit and renew the educational charism of the Society.
By disposition of Father Provincial Francesco Tata, the Centre is established as an instrument at the service of the Colleges, with the aim of sustaining the Society's apostolic presence in education, promoting knowledge of the Ignatian pedagogical tradition and fostering fuller co-responsibility of the laity in the school mission. The first team, composed of Jesuits and lay people, grows from experience already matured in some colleges and gathers figures such as Rossana Carmagnani, Fr Mario Danieli, Fr Vitangelo Maria Denora and Fr Teresio Gianuzzi, called to develop a pathway able to accompany schools in understanding and enacting the Ignatian way of proceeding.