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><em>Working for strategic recommendations 2015-2012 at the second day of the Forum. We follow the work from Paris with the Youth for a United World .</em></p> <p><strong>30 of October - Day 2</strong>. " Here at the Forum we will continue to work on recommendations for the Operational Strategy on Youth 2015-2021. We talk about the review of policies of UNESCO , capacity development for the transition to adult life and civic engagement .</p> <p><strong>"During the work session</strong> on the third theme (civil commitment , ndr.) we began to share some of our concrete experiences in this field. Soon after some others joined to tell the deeds done. At this point the moderator has proposed to suggest the creation of a mapping of good practice.</p> <p><strong>"It's a bit ' late</strong> and at this point the ' team ' greets you and we’ll update you tomorrow , the day when the final recommendations will be adopted and put on the final document ."</p>
<p><em>From 29 to 31 October 2013, the Youth for a United World are participating with the United World Project to the eighth edition of the event promoted from the Organization of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. The expectations and hopes for the start of the Forum. The commitment to the fraternity. From the headquarters in Paris the story of this first day</em></p> <p><strong>29 of October - Day 1</strong>. "Today we were all together and we did four hours of work. We covered several topics concerning the ' UNESCO , the NGO New Humanity and what we could bring to the Forum.<br />" We toured the headquarters of UNESCO : revolutionized to set up the organization of the Forum, invaded by young volunteers who prepared the whole event.</p> <p><strong>"We feel that the biggest responsibility is</strong> initiating this path and understand more about how to bring our contribution for a united world. The UN and UNESCO organizations are animated by our own dreams of a united world. And we do not believe in the brotherhood because we like the idea, but we live it , see it , why we believe it. The fragments of fraternity and the Genfest are experieces of fraternity.
<p><em>The commitment to work for unity, an aspiration written on the human heart, opens new trails and generates relief from pain. This is an experience <a href="http://giovaniperunmondounito.blogspot.it/" target="_blank">Youth for a United World (Y4UW)</a> group from Egypt working with refugees from Eritrea, Ethiopia and Sudan.</em></p> <p><strong>Hearing of a jail for “special cases,”</strong> the <a href="http://giovaniperunmondounito.blogspot.it/" target="_blank">Y4UW</a> decided to look further into the situation. At the jail they found men, women and children, mostly Christians from Eritrea. Their story was one of incredible pain. In an attempt to seek a better place than their own land, they discovered instead that they had fallen into the trap of human organ trafficking and would soon be among the anonymous dead. When they realized this, they fled over the border and took refuge in Egypt. Without documents they were arrested and jailed. This is where the Focolare <a href="http://giovaniperunmondounito.blogspot.it/" target="_blank">Youth for a United World </a>met them waiting for a way back to Eritrea.</p> <p><strong>Abdo who is a firsthand witness, recounts</strong>: “With the help of a missionary and the <a href="http://giovaniperunmondounito.blogspot.it/" target="_blank">Y4UW</a>, we were able to go into the jail. We were enthusiastic about offering help, but we never imagined the suffering we would touch with our own hands. There was a scarcity of food and hygiene; and medical care was non-existent inside the jail that had once been an army barracks.</p>
<p><em>Young people all over the world submit their plans to turn ideas into action. From 29 to 31 October 2013 at the UNESCO's Headquarters in Paris.</em></p> <p><strong>For the first time in its 12-year history</strong>, the outcomes of the 8th UNESCO Youth Forum (29-31 October 2013) to be presented to the UNESCO General Conference (5-20 November 2013) will include, besides strategic recommendations, 15 youth-led action projects (3 projects per each of the 5 UNESCO regions) that represent innovation and enterprise in youth action across the five regions of the world (Africa, Arab States, Asia and the Pacific, Europe and North America, and Latin America and the Caribbean)</p> <p><strong>The UNESCO Youth Forum is</strong> an integral part of UNESCO’s General Conference. It was initiated in 1999 to create synergies between UNESCO’s work on youth, youth organizations and public institutions working on youth. More than an event, the Forum is a process that enables young women and men to submit strategic recommendations to representatives of 195 Member States and to engage in their implementation.</p>
<p><em>According to Save the Children NGO report from 1990 this nation implemented nutritional programmes and access to free care for pregnant women and children</em><strong> </strong></p> <p><strong>Niger has made the most progress worldwide</strong> on reducing child mortality since 1990, according to a study out.Also among the top 10 nations that have made the greatest strides in tackling such deaths are Liberia, Rwanda, Indonesia, Madagascar, India, China, Egypt, Tanzania and Mozambique, Save the Children found.</p> <p><strong>On the more problematic end of the spectrum</strong>, those making the least progress were Haiti, Papua New Guinea and Equatorial Guinea, said the non-governmental group's report. The rate of deaths of children under five still remains high in Niger. But it has been reduced by a dramatic two thirds: plunging from 326 in 1 000 back in 1990 to 114 out of 1 000 in 2012.
<p><em>In St. Peter square from more 75 countries in five continents for the Year of Faith</em></p> <p><strong>Vatican, Oct 27 -</strong> We all know that families, and young families in particular, are often in a rush with a great many things to do, but do you ever think that this rush could also be a rush of faith, Pope Francis asked families from more than 75 countries in five continents who had gathered as part of the the Year of Faith.</p> <p><strong>In his extraordinary homily</strong>, the Pope said that Christian families were missionary families, leading everyday lives, doing ordinary things, sprinkling the salt and yeast of faith as they went.</p>
<p><em>He was the World Bank economist who received international attention for his efforts to find a treatment for the rare degenerative brain disease that afflicted his son</em></p> <p><strong>Augusto Odone</strong>, a World Bank economist who received international attention for his efforts to find a treatment for the rare degenerative brain disease that afflicted his son Lorenzo — a struggle portrayed in the movie “Lorenzo’s Oil” — died Oct. 24 in Acqui Terme, Italy. He was 80.</p> <p><strong>The death was confirmed</strong> by Patti Chapman, president of the Myelin Project, based in Pacific Palisades, Calif. Mr. Odone and his wife, Michaela, founded the organization in 1989 to foster research into their son’s disease, adrenoleukodystrophy, and other disorders that destroy the myelin sheath, which allows brain cells to communicate with one another.
<p><em>The men, between the ages of 27 and 67, were handed over on Friday at the truce village of Panmunjom, on the border between the two countries.</em></p> <p><strong>North Korea has returned six South Korean men</strong> to their homeland, South Korean officials say, in a rare move. Their names were not released and details surrounding their detention in the North remain unclear.</p> <p><strong>The two Koreas remain technically at war</strong>, as the 1950-53 conflict ended in an armistice and not a peace treaty. Pyongyang's Red Cross informed Seoul that the men would be handed back via Panmunjom on Thursday, a statement from South Korea's Unification Ministry said.</p> <p><strong>Officials said the group would be taken</strong> to South Korea's spy agency to face questions over their presence in North Korea.The South Korean government said that at first glance, the men were not on the list of those abducted by the North.
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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