Where Care Blooms: A Pedagogical Journey "Roots and Rebirth"

From Santiago, Chile, to the heart of the Elqui Valley, 45 students from the Nursing, Speech Therapy, and Kinesiology programs at the Faculty of Health Sciences at the Silva Henríquez Catholic University (UCSH) lived an experience that profoundly marked their educational and personal journey, surrounded by mountains, open skies, and ancient seeds that safeguard the memory of the earth.

 This journey was not just a physical journey. It was an act of hope and ecological commitment. A living expression of a community that believes in care as a form of love and in health as a profoundly human act.

 Thanks to solidarity and collaborative work, the students raised funds by selling natural preparations made with medicinal herbs grown in the university's own gardens. Thus, what sprouts from the earth was also what made this journey possible: a true metaphor for the life that regenerates when cultivated in community.

 At the Seed Bank of the National Institute of Agricultural Research (INIA), in Vicuña, a city in Chile's fourth region, through this experience, students learned the beauty of conserving biodiversity and the urgency of protecting what is at risk of disappearing. At the Ieruba Kindergarten in the Pampa de San Isidro, they planted experiences alongside children through play, herbal medicine, and ecological education, leaving a seed in each heart.

 As a generous and deeply symbolic gesture, the INIA donated endangered native species to our university, a gift that speaks of trust in our commitment to the land. These plants will have a significant space on the UCSH Lo Cañas Campus. Weliwen—which in Mapudungun means "new dawn"—is much more than a courtyard. It is a living classroom, a place where roots converse with the future. In what was once an old winery where the Salesian Fathers made wine, the herbal salon and an educational gardening space have been reborn, where students learn with their hands in the earth and their hearts open.

 There flourish:

●  Medicinal gardens that heal and teach

●  A circular garden that honors the cycles of life

● Jerusalem artichoke crops that nourish and connect

● And the newly started Native Garden, which will house the donated plants and will be a symbol of hope and care

 This experience not only humanizes vocational training, it also embodies the deepest part of the Salesian charism: to educate with tenderness, to care with joy, to transform with love.

 In every step, every gesture, and every seed planted, there remains the echo of what we believe: that health is not learned only in books, but in the connection with others, with the earth, with life.

 Because educating is, above all, an act of faith in what can flourish.

 "Education is a matter of the heart." – Don Bosco