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> </p> <p style="font-size: 13px;"><em>A "fragment of fraternity" from India. After ten years a project that began by helping a few families in need cares today for more the 115 young people with a range of educational activities going from intercultural awareness to medical treatment. </em></p> <p style="font-size: 13px;"><strong><img src="images/news/2013-2015/Mumbai.jpg" width="250" height="166" alt="Mumbai" style="border-style: initial; border-color: initial; float: left; margin-top: 5px; margin-right: 5px;" />Mumbai is the economic heart</strong> of India and one of the largest and most densely populated cities in the country. But many of its 20 million inhabitants live on the streets or in slums found all over in the city. In one of these, about forty minutes by train from the centre of the city in the north west, live about 400 thousand people in conditions of extreme poverty.</p> <p style="font-size: 13px;"><strong>It is here that in 1997</strong> several families in the slum decided to set up a social project in collaboration with ‘Support at a Distance’, a project run by New Families. In 2001, during her first visit to India, Chiara Lubich encouraged them to develop what they had begun as ‘a practical response to the poverty around us.’
<p> <em>The Greek coastguard has rescued more than 90 migrants sailing off the south of the country after their boat ran into trouble in bad weather, a spokeswoman said Thursday.</em></p> <div style="height: 100%; color: #515151; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px; background-image: initial; background-color: #ffffff; padding-right: 5px; padding-left: 5px; line-height: 130%; min-width: 90%; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial;"> <p><strong><img src="images/news/2013-2015/Immigrati.jpg" width="250" height="150" alt="Immigrati" style="float: left; margin-top: 5px; margin-right: 5px;" />“Overall 97 persons (were rescued) yesterday</strong>, including three who are presumed traffickers,” a coastguard spokeswoman told AFP, adding they have all been taken to the western city of Pylos.<br />“The traffickers are being detained in the police station and the other 94 persons are in a stadium” on a temporary basis, she said.</p> <p><strong>The boat first encountered difficulties</strong> late on Monday and the rescue operation, in which 13 vessels and one helicopter participated, was completed on Wednesday.<br />All the migrants are doing well according to the coastguard. Their nationalities have not been released. Two pregnant women and an elderly woman were taken to the city’s health centre as a precautionary measure, the state-run Athens News Agency reported.
<p> </p> <p><em>The popular pontiff also singled out South Sudan, the Central African Republic and Nigeria during his message to tens of thousands of tourists, pilgrims and Romans who gathered below the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City.</em></p> <p><br /> <img src="images/news/2013-2015/Natale_Vaticano.jpg" width="250" height="150" alt="Natale Vaticano" style="float: left; margin-top: 5px; margin-right: 5px;" /><strong>Pope Francis on Christmas Day</strong> is wishing for a better world, with peace for the land of Jesus' birth, for Syria and Africa, as well as for the dignity of migrants and refugees fleeing misery and conflict.</p> <p><strong>Francis spoke from the central</strong> balcony of St. Peter's Basilica Wednesday to tens of thousands of tourists, pilgrims and Romans in the square below. He said he was joining in the song of Christmas angels with all those hoping "for a better world," and with those who "care for others, humbly."</p>
<p><em>Budapest aims to increase areas from 130,000 to 300,000 hectares.</em></p> <p><strong>Hungary has a goal of doubling the area</strong> of organic farming, even by distributing funds to farmers, and aims to further develop organic agriculture, based on techniques that respect nature and the animals' habitat. This was announced by a statement issued by of Magyar government, that specifies the objectives on which the country is working hard, as part of EU Multiannual Financial Framework 2014-2020. The ultimate goal is to increase organic farming from the current 130,000 hectares to about 300,000. A section of the so-called ''Action Plan for the development of organic farming'' also promotes the consumption of organic products and is designed to raise awareness on organic farming among consumers.
<p> </p> <p><em><a href="http://www.teens4unity.net/home_ita.html" target="_blank">The Young for Unity</a> in Cordoba, Argentina, go to the streets, to help restore order and melt tensions following serious social uprisings that began with police strikes</em></p> <p><strong>Cordoba is a city of 1.2 million inhabitants</strong> in the heart of Argentina. Provincial police began protesting for higher wages, leading to strikes that left the streets without police protection. Two people died and more than a thousand commercial centres, private homes and a Caritas warehouse were assaulted by groups of organized criminal delinquents on December 13th and 14th. A curfew was enforced on the citizens who remain locked in their homes, public offices, schools and universities. Public transportation was no longer in service.</p> <p><strong>The mediation carried out by Comipaz</strong> (interreligious committee), through the intervention of Auxiliary Bishop Pedro Javier Torres, Rabbi Marcelo Polakoff and religious leaders from several other confessional groups helped to re-establish calm.<br />By noontime on December 4th they reached an agreement between the parties, following which the police slowly regained control of the city.
<p><em>In Bethlehem, where the Secretariat of Youth for a United World are meeting in these days with the Youth for a United World of the Holy Land. This is the initiative for this period to trasform each city capable of welcoming the lonely ones,the marginalized, the poor and the homeless.</em></p> <p><strong>Christmas in Bethlehem!</strong> “It’s a unique opportunity to crown this year through our meeting with the Holy Land Youth for a United World”, shared Maria Guaita, Andrew Camilleri and Claudia Barrero, from the Y4UW international secretariat.</p> <p style="display: inline !important;"> </p> <p style="display: inline !important;"><strong>What significance does it have for you</strong> to spend Christmas in the Holy Land? We have welcomed this invitation as a proposal to all the Youth for a United World spread all over the planet – narrates Maria Guaita -. The Gospel narrates that Mary and Joseph found no inn to lodge: “the Word came to his own and his own people did not accept him.” We wish to welcome him especially in the lonely ones, the marginalized, the poor and the homeless. Therefore, we commit ourselves to transform each of our cities into a small Bethlehem that hosts the nativity crib that offers a cradle to baby Jesus.”
<p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-style: inherit; font-size: 12px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; border-width: 0px;"><em>Parliamentary polls were also taking place and this could mean a power-sharing deal is necessary.<br /></em></p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-style: inherit; font-size: 12px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; border-width: 0px;"><strong>Madagascar has been voting</strong> in round two of a presidential poll, which it is hoped will help one of Africa’s poorest <br />nations emerge from political, economic and social crisis.</p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-style: inherit; font-size: 12px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; border-width: 0px;"><strong>It is the first such ballot</strong> since 2009 when democratically-elected Marc Ravalomanana was ousted in a military-backed takeover by incumbent President Andry Rajoelina.</p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-style: inherit; font-size: 12px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; border-width: 0px;"><strong>Claims of fraud on both</strong> sides have not been confirmed by independent monitors and, according to Africa Diaspora in Europe Observer Olivier Combo, the vote unfolded peacefully.
Economy & Work
Thirty-five years ago a dream was born: the Economy of Communion. In late May Argentina will host an extraordinary celebration where people of all ages will come together to breathe new life into this project and write the future for a different kind of economy.
Lorna Gold, Executive Director of Laudato Si’ Movement, reflects on ten years of the encyclical, analysing how integral ecology is an essential path to global unity and tackling the climate crisis.
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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