Project to train vulnerable foreign youngsters in the Almeria seminary moves forward

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The procedure to formalise the degrees to be taught continues and four religious sisters of the 'Misioneras de Cristo Jesús' from Spain, Asia and Africa will live in the facilities

Alicia Amate

Almería

Friday, 23 January 2026, 16:03

The Almeria seminary, which has been closed since 2021, is planning to start a project to provide training for young vulnerable foreigners. The initiative has received strong criticism by some of the parents of the adjacent Diocesan College. However, the project is still going ahead, although no date has been confirmed.

When asked about the project during a press conference on Thursday 22 January, organised in the Casa Sacerdotal, the Bishop of Almeria, Antonio Gómez Cantero, acknowledged that it is a "slower" procedure than he would like. "If you want to do formal training, you need the Junta de Andalucía and prepare the documents so that the boys who go there to study for three months have formal training, that is to say, that they have a degree", explained Gómez Cantero. He did say that "more and more progress is being made".

Gómez Cantero confirmed that, along with this project promoted by the Jesuit migrant service (SJM-Almeria), four nuns from the order of the Misioneras de Cristo Jesús, each of them from a different origin in Spain, Africa and Asia, will move into the Almeria Seminary building. However, the building will have to undergo some work to make it inhabitable, including modernising the heating system.

The project focuses on the training and labour insertion of migrants exposed to conditions of exclusion, many of them living in shantytowns and other forms of substandard housing in the region of Níjar and Poniente Almeriense, explained the Bishopric of Almería in its presentation.

The project will be led by SJM-Almería and the ECCA Social Foundation and will have a team with solid experience. Its director is Fátima Santaló-Ossorio, from the Sacred Heart order, who closely linked to the diocese and recognised for her work at the head of the Bantabá centre in Las Norias.