Brother Armin Luistro, Superior General of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, has appointed Brother Óscar Azmitia as Director of the Institute’s Office of Justice and Peace, effective from 1 September 2026 until 31 August 2029.
Brother Oscar Guillermo Azmitia Barranco is Guatemalan and belongs to the Central America-Panama District. He has studied Philosophy and Psychology and holds a Doctorate in Education.
He has dedicated his life to education “as a path to justice, peace and social transformation”. In this regard, he has worked as a teacher in various secondary and higher education institutions; his career is deeply linked to a commitment to indigenous peoples and to culturally relevant educational processes, particularly in Guatemala and Latin America. From this perspective, he has promoted “a liberating education, capable of confronting the injustices, historical exclusion and social inequalities that affect communities”.
He founded and ran the Escuela Superior de Educación Integral Rural (ESEDIR, Higher School of Comprehensive Rural Education) and the Proyecto de Desarrollo Santiago (PRODESSA, Santiago Development Project), both in Guatemala and aimed at promoting culturally relevant education.
He has served as Secretary, Regional Director and President of the Asociación Latinoamericana de Organismos de Promoción (ALOP, Latin American Association of Development Promotion Organisations), which has brought together more than 40 organisations promoting development in Latin America and the Caribbean.
In the Lasallian Region of Latin America (RELAL), he was part of the international team that formulated the Proyecto Educativo Regional Lasallista (PERLA, Lasallian Regional Educational Project) and wrote Rutas de Esperanza (“Paths of Hope”), a work linked to La Salle’s Islands of Creativity.
He served as President of Universidad De La Salle in San José, Costa Rica, for seven years, and has contributed to various international educational initiatives, including research and doctoral programmes linked to the Universidad Abierta La Salle in Andorra.
Throughout his career in education and as a Lasallian, Brother Óscar has published numerous books and articles on education, development, social justice and transforming society through schools. In this way, guided by his Lasallian vocation, he continues to champion “an education that defends life, upholds the dignity of peoples and builds hope”. His works include Tejedores de la vid* (Weavers of Life), four volumes of Hagamos educación (Let’s Create Education, co-authored); La utopía es como el horizonte (Utopia is Like the Horizon); Cuando la realidad nos obliga a romper el silencio (When Reality Forces Us to Break the Silence); Rutas de Esperanza* Paths of Hope) and Hilos de un tejido: Tiempo de educar para el cambi* (Threads of a Fabric: Time to Educate for Change); and Repensando la educación desde la crisis (Rethinking Education in the Wake of the Crisis), following the global COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2023, the Brother Superior General appointed him a member of the Institute’s Commission on Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation, and since 2024 he has been an adviser to the Senior Office of the Guatemalan Ministry of Education.
We wish Br. Óscar Azmitia every success in the new mission entrusted to him by the Institute.
