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>At the European Commission’s Headquarters, some religious leaders will gather to reflect on peaceful coexistence and the challenges it has to face. Also the Focolare President, Maria Voce will attend the meeting.</em></p> <p><strong></strong><strong>The meeting with the religious leaders</strong> will take place on <strong>16 June </strong>at the Berlaymont Building in Brussels, seat of the European Commission. The top-level operational meeting is regularly held among the organisations of the European Union and churches, religions, philosophical associations and non-religious organizations, as provided by Art.17 of the Treaty of Lisbon.</p>
<p><em><em>Like every year, in early May the Youth for a United World all over the world have made a lot of activities and initiatives within the United World Week. Below you find some other fragments (and others at these</em> links: <a href="http://unitedworldproject.org/it/home/14-notizie/766-qualche-stralcio-dalla-settimana-mondo-unito-2015-nel-mondo.html">1</a> - <a href="http://unitedworldproject.org/it/home/14-notizie/770-qualche-altro-frammento-dalla-settimana-mondo-unito-2015.html">2</a>).</em></p> <p><strong>Paraguay.</strong> Young people went to share an afternoon with the children of a kindergarten and also went to accompany the elderly from a geriatric hospital. They also launched a proposal to give blood to help those in need. Sunday, May 10 they made the closure of the UWW in the city of Caazapá, with the race for unit, where they met with the teens for a united world and young people from other places.</p> <p><strong>Philippines.</strong> They campaigned for empowerment and a fund-raising to help the earthquake victims in Nepal, called "One for Nepal". They asked for donations and also made musical concerts sell T-shirt.</p>
<p><em>The UN Agenda for development post-2015 in discussion in the Vatican, upon the initiative of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. Among the women speakers was Rita Moussalem from the Focolare's Center for Interreligious Dialogue.</em></p> <p><strong></strong><strong>While gender is the topic under discussion in the Western world</strong>, in developing countries the concern is for the tragedy of exploitation; in the Middle East the rights of women, and peace. Still in the West, women forced to choose between work and family; lives that are subjected to violence…</p> <p><strong></strong>These are a few of the<strong> challenges and problems </strong>– differing according to the various geographical areas – in discussion at the United Nations, in view of the new agenda for the <em><a href="https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/focussdgs.html">Sustainable Development Goals</a></em>, to be carried out after the year 2015 (the date by which the 193 member states hoped to achieve the famous <em>Millennium Development Goals</em>).</p>
<p><em><span id="result_box" lang="it"><span title="August 25th-30th 2015 "></span><span title="Palazzo Scopoli, Tonadico (Trent, Italy) ">Religions in the Global World<br />August 25th-30th 2015</span></span></em></p> <p><span lang="it"><span title="Palazzo Scopoli, Tonadico (Trent, Italy) "><span id="result_box" lang="it"><span title="Religions are having a strong impact on the international scene, continuing to influence heavily cultures, societies and the broader academic and public debate worldwide."></span><span title="of the positive function that religions can actually play. ">Religions are having a strong impact on the international scene, continuing to influence heavily cultures, societies and the broader academic and public debate worldwide. Understanding the role of religions in the global world has to be conceived not merely in terms of political instability, social disorder, or as a de-facto analysis of a pluralistic environment, but also as an historical fact that opens a space for a better understanding of the positive function that religions can actually play.</span></span></span></span></p>
<p><em>Like every year, in early May the Youth for a United World all over the world have made a lot of activities and initiatives within the United World Week. Below you find some other fragments (and others at this <a href="en/home/10-news/767-some-fragments-from-the-united-world-week-2015-all-over-the-world.html">link</a>).<br /></em></p> <p><em></em><strong></strong><strong>Lebanon. </strong>A collection of food packages and then going to distribute them to the homeless people on the streets. All this trying to invite friends to join and trying to do it with a big smile, to bring more than just food. Photos and other infos <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/1420740168243955/">here</a>.</p> <p><strong>Yogyakarta, Indonesia. </strong>"Games4Peace": more than 80 participants, some young people from the nearby parish and from the focolare of Yogyakarta, friends, classmates, etc. spent together a beautiful sunny Sunday morning, playing, running, learning, building friendships and above all testifying the universal brotherhood.
<p><em>The 3rd Christians Amongst Muslims Day is held on May 29, 2015, at the Doha Centre for Dialogue and Culture: “Isa bin Marjam/Jesus Christ – Brother of each one of us.” Focolare president and co-president, Maria Voce and Jesús Morán were also amongst the invited guests.</em></p> <p><strong></strong><strong>In Poland, with its population of 38 million, 90% of whom are Christian, the Muslims are a religious minority. </strong>They number 25 thousand, 0.08% of the population. Their presence presence back to the Tartars of the 14th century; then there was the immigration of the second half of the 20th century and the years after the Berlin wall. The recent day of dialogue is inserted amongst three major events in the ongoing dialogue amongst Christians and Muslims in Poland.
<p><em>"He needs something on his head because he's bleeding. That's my job - to help. And I think anyone else would have done the same as me."</em></p> <p>New Zealand Sikh man is being hailed a hero after removing his turban to help a child who had been hit by a car. <a href="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11449538" target="_hplink">Harman Singh heard screeching wheels</a> near his home in Auckland and ran outside to find that Daejon Pahia had been hit by a car, according to The New Zealand Herald.</p> <p>"I saw a child down on the ground and a lady was holding him. His head was bleeding, so I unveiled my turban and put it under his head," the 22-year-old said. "I wasn't thinking about the turban. I was thinking about the accident and I just thought, 'He needs something on his head because he's bleeding.' That's my job - to help. And I think anyone else would have done the same as me."</p>
<p><em>Like every year, in early May the Youth for a United World all over the world have made a lot of activities and initiatives within the United World Week. Below you find some fragments:<br /></em></p> <p><strong>Chaco, Argentina.</strong> "Change the face". In the main square, the activity had the young people in a leaing role, thay participated with different games. The idea was to promote the smile, realizing that it's the first individual action that you can do for peace. Also they made a collective mural, and took pictures with the tag "I work for peace". They finally talked to the youth of Washington, in the United States, to pass them the baton.</p> <p><strong>Curitiba, Brazil.</strong> In the activities the imprint was the relationship between young people and adolescents:
<p><em>The first international and pan-African EoC school is underway: involving the dynamism of a young population with high aspirations and dreams amid the great challenges facing the continent.</em></p> <p><strong></strong><strong>«We are a new generation that wants to take the helm of </strong>the <a href="http://www.edc-online.org">Ec</a><a href="http://www.edc-online.org" target="_blank">onomy of Communion. </a>We are well aware of our inexperience and immaturity but we are also glad to feel that this is precisely our strong point, and we do not want to stop dreaming.» Liliane Mugombozi, a journalist in Kenya, picked up the voice of a young Cameroonese among the participants of the international Economy of Communion (EoC) school, underway from 22 to 26 May at Mariapolis Piero, the Focolare town close to Nairobi, Kenya.</p>
Dialogue & Interculture
New Humanity NGO presented the M.E.D.I.T.erraNEW project — co-financed by the Erasmus Plus Program — to the Youth Section of UNESCO in Paris.
Peace & Human Rights
Amid the rubble of Syria, art becomes an act of resistance. Discover the story of Aeham Ahmad, the “The Pianist of Yarmouk”, who defied the horror of war with the invincible beauty of his musical notes.
Operation Mato Grosso is working on over 100 missions across Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia, all rooted in education, hard work, and solidarity. Jacopo Manara, who has been a volunteer for years, tells us their story.
An interview on communication with Michele Zanzucchi, journalist and writer, former director of Città Nuova, professor of communication at Sophia University Institute and at the Pontifical Gregorian University, and author of around forty books.
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