Stories from around the globe show how a united world is already in motion. This platform highlights experiences, initiatives, and projects from people and communities working for unity and peace. Explore what’s happening and get inspired.
<p><em>A new spirit of participation has been spreading among the population since April. Resignations and arrests at the highest levels of the Latin American country. The contribution of the Political Movement for Unity: #politics4unity</em></p> <p><strong></strong>In April, a huge fraud by officials of the Tax Administration Service in collusion with senior level political leaders was uncovered. The close collaboration between the Public Ministry and the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) led to dozens of people being brought to trial for corruption, including the Vice President. It raised a wave of indignation among citizens, which continues to grow.</p>
<p><em>The aim is to create a world of 100% renewable energy by 2050. "Religions for Peace" calls on heads of nations to respond urgently to the threats of climate change. Give your support too!</em></p> <p><strong>Climatic change is one of the major moral challenges of our times</strong>. Several religious leaders unite in order to support a worldwide petition in favour of 100% of renewable energy by 2050.</p> <p><strong>Religions for Peace</strong> is the world’s largest and most representative multi-religious coalition-advances common action among the world’s religious communities for peace.
<p><em>While the Mediterranean tragedy of people escaping from war and hunger continues, in a mountain municipality in northern Italy, the hospitality offered to migrants turns into a revival of the community and the region.</em></p> <p><strong><strong>Five years ago, the town was classified as having one of the lowest socio-economic communities in the Piemonte region</strong>. </strong>But the entire community learned about hospitality towards others and today, 30 refugees, almost all Africans, besides a family from Kosovo with three children, have been living for eight months now, in a housing unit owned by the Cottolengo Institute.</p>
<p><em>After two days of intense talks North and South Korea have reached an agreement on ending their stand off which had pushed the peninsula into a state of heightened military tension.</em></p> <p>“The crisis began after landmine explosions wounded South Korean troops. Seoul responded by broadcasting anti-Pyongyang propaganda.</p> <p>In a statement South Korea’s Chief of National Security said : North Korea has expressed regret over a recent landmine incident on the South’s side of the Demilitarized Zone along the Military Demarcation Line that wounded South Korean soldiers. South Korea has agreed to halt anti-Pyongyang propaganda broadcasts. And the North has agreed to end its ‘semi-state of war’.”</p>
<p><em>Carmen, a volunteer worker at the jailhouse in the eastern region of the Caribbean Island, recounts her meeting with the «poorest among the poor.» The power of the Word.</em></p> <p><strong>“</strong><strong>Since 1994</strong> <strong>I have worked in the Pastoral Jail of the Archdiocese of Santiago </strong>in Cuba which also includes the city of Guantanamo. Together with other volunteers we see to their needs and those of their relatives, because these people are <strong>really the poorest among the poor</strong>.</p>
<p><em>70 years ago, with the launch of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima (6 August 1945) and Nagasaki (9 August 1945), the world entered the nuclear age: for the first time in history, mankind acquired the ability to destroy itself (in the pic, the sky above Hiroshima after the explosion of the bomb).</em></p> <p>Though he try fiendishly and implacably, it is not given to man to destroy mankind. It was God Who brought the human race into being; it is His Providence, and not man’s passion for tearing down, that will bring mankind’s earthly sojourn to an end.</p> <p>But man can embark on a course of destruction; he can harness the forces of nature by the keenness of his God-given intelligence and the skill of his God-given hands, and he can unloose those forces not for the beneficent ends that God wills, but for the purpose of ruin, destruction and chaos.</p>
<p><em>The first anniversary of the ISIS invasion of the Nineveh Plains, the Catholic Church promotes a series of prayer vigils in Fheis. A moment of relief amidst tragedy.</em></p> <p><strong>On August 7, 2015, the Catholic Church in Jordan held a prayer vigil</strong> to commemorate last year’s tragic events that displaced more than 100,000 Christians.</p> <p><strong><strong></strong></strong>More than 2000 faithful, the majority Iraqi refugees, held a solemn prayer vigil steeped in pain, at the church square of Fuheis.
<p><em>Italy has finally promulgated a law dedicated to autism, inserting it among the essential levels of assistance for treatment. Federico De Rosa is autistic. At the age of eight he learned to write with the computer. His story talks about autism from the viewpoint of those suffering from it.</em></p> <p><em></em>“<strong>I dream a lot and often.</strong> A recurring dream is that of a sunny day in which my sentiments and thoughts flow freely in a surge of words for all my friends. What a joy it is to be able to speak!”</p> <p>Federico does not speak, even if he knows that communication does not only come about through language. The first symptoms were already evident at the first year of age. The more he grew the more his capacity to interact with reality diminished. At the age of three came the diagnosis. He was totally incapable of communicating, and was suffering from the strongest forms of generalised disorders in development, a very serious disorder that could be traced to the extensive and varied universe of autism.</p>
<p><em><span id="result_box" lang="it"><span title="One teacher's way to reconciliation in troubled Baltimore ">One teacher’s way to reconciliation in troubled Baltimore</span></span></em></p> <p><span id="result_box" lang="it"><span title="I have been in a Baltimore City Public School for the past 10 years teaching students with special needs."></span><span title="In some cases a father figure is absent. ">I have been in a Baltimore City Public School for the past 10 years teaching students with special needs. Many come from poverty and drug-stricken areas. The majority of the children are raised by their grandmothers or single mothers. In some cases a father figure is absent.</span></span></p> <p>A few months ago a part of the city was engulfed in fire as protestors showed their anger over the death of Freddie Gray, a young black man who was injured while being detained by police and who later fell into a coma and died. Stores were burned; bricks and rocks were thrown at the police, whom they held responsible for Gray’s death.</p>
Dialogue & Interculture
United World Week
Every year, from May 1st to 7th, the United World Project support, together with the Focolare Movement and Youth for a United World (Y4UW), the United World Week, a global action where many people promote events and initiatives worldwide to foster dialogue, unity, and peace.
Dialogue & Interculture
Dialogue & Interculture
Dialogue & Interculture
United World Week
Here’s the key: knowing that we do not know. No one possesses the absolute Truth, and by engaging in dialogue with everyone we can grasp aspects or fragments of truth that help us reassemble a shattered vase that we can restore only if we are “together”.
Economy & Work
Anna Granata, professor at the University of Milano-Bicocca, reminds us that teaching peace is not an abstract utopia. It is something that happens every day in Italian classrooms among children with diverse stories, languages, and backgrounds.
Art & Social Commitment
Celebrated Marvel and DC artist Gabriele Dell’Otto invites us to consider the people who are working to build peace as the real superheroes of our world. A profound discussion on responsibility, citizenship, and the challenge of doing the extraordinary in our everyday lives.
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