Jef Ulburghs

He actively engaged in protests for the rights of miners, steelworkers, migrants, political refugees, deserted neighbourhoods and the Third World.

[4] In 1947 he became Vice President of the Paroisse Notre-Dame Auxiliatrice, Grâce-Berleur, Diocese of Liège, a grey "red" neighbourhood with miners and steel workers.

[4] Ulburghs founded a folk high school college for workers and, in the meanwhile, studied political and social sciences at the Leuven University.

[3] After the founding of the new Roman Catholic Diocese of Hasselt, Bishop Heusschen Ulburghs returned to Limburg and became Secretary of the Pastoral Council and Chairman of the Commission Justice and Peace.

In theory, World Schools for Education and Community and Development for the Action were different, but in practice, they both ran together[5] In the early 1970s, Ulburghs was on the barricades during the big miners' strike.

[2] In 1974, World Schools merged with the Center for Formation and Action (CVA), originated from the torn left-wing Young Davids Fund.

This translated into local forms of education (around the Third World, guest workers, city issues, women's emancipation, alcoholism, peace building, etc.

He often challenged Mayor Louis Gaethofs, but earned the respect of local residents whose problems he put on the table.

On August 25, 2002, he was appointed as an honorary citizen in Grâce-Hollogne[7] In 2005, at the age of 83, Ulburghs obtained another doctorate in Political Science.