Following Pope Francis’ Encyclicals on care of our common home, Laudato Sì and Laudate Deum, a community in in Formia (Italy), has promoting greater energy efficiency and developed renewable forms of energy.“In some places, cooperatives are being developed to exploit renewable sources of energy which ensure local self-sufficiency and even the sale of surplus energy. This simple example shows that, while the existing world order proves powerless to assume its responsibilities, local individuals and groups can make a real difference.” (179). These are the words of Pope Francis in the encyclical Laudato Sì on caring for our common home, published in 2015. After the publication of this letter and in the light of the new apostolic exhortation Laudate Deum (4th October 2023), many communities around the world felt inspired to do something concrete for the care of the environment, to change their lifestyles and to take action against climate change. The Focolare community in Formia felt this responsibility and decided to instigate a positive change in the care of people and of the environment. At the beginning of 2023, after a short organisational process, with a varied group of entities, they started a Renewable Energy Community around a Parish in their Municipality. The purpose was to produce, consume, sell and share electricity. Their inspiration was the desire to implement what Pope Francis proposed in Laudato Sì. Referring to local communities, the Pope affirmed that they can make a real difference, “as they are able to instil, a greater sense of responsibility, a strong sense of community, a readiness to protect others, a spirit of creativity and a deep love for the land. They are also concerned about what they will eventually leave to their children and grandchildren” (179). Hence the idea of developing renewable and low-polluting forms of energy by promoting greater energy efficiency. And even more: on one hand there is a desire to give more attention to solving the environmental crisis while on the other, an effort is being made to address the difficulties that some citizens have in paying energy bills. The energy community involves a variety of partners: from the parish to families, from educational institutions to commercial activities. Bringing different entities together risks the occurrence of misunderstandings or different visions. This is why, from the outset, efforts were made to involve everyone and explain the objectives of the project so that everyone was aware of the path to be followed. For this reason there have been several meetings to understand the motivations, overcome doubts and difficulties. The local community then participated in a public tender for funds. The subsidies were specifically intended for Renewable Energy Communities. The contributions they received allowed them to launch the project.
An afternoon of hope and joy with the boys of the juvenile detention centre in Rome (Italy) Casal del Marmo, northwest suburb of Rome, Italy. The district is famous for the presence of a juvenile detention centre that houses boys from various parts of Italy, many of whom are foreigners. On the occasion of the Street Mission “Live for something great”, organized by several Associations and Communities including the Focolare Movement, Gen Rosso visited the institute to find about forty boys waiting for them. However, the first unexpected reaction was quite cold. Most of them speak Arabic. But Lito, a young friend of Gen Rosso, an excellent DJ, is Egyptian and speaks their language. He began to translate. They didn’t expect this. The atmosphere began to thaw with the help of the music. Time flew: rhythm, songs, applause and deep reflection. Tearful eyes, sincere smiles. The simplicity of a different kind of afternoon within those walls. Gen Rosso managed to convey a message of hope, also drawing on some interventions by Pope Francis. “Even if you make mistakes, you can always get up and start over, for no one has the right to rob you of hope”. These are the words of the Pope when in 2019 he met young people on his apostolic journey to Bulgaria and North Macedonia. He began by saying, “Dreams help us to keep alive the certainty of knowing that another world is possible (…). The most beautiful dreams can be achieved with hope, patience and commitment…” These words resonated in the juvenile institution. Then came the time to dream with open eyes. Helanio took over. He took the microphone: “We know that some of you sing…” Three young rappers jumped up. They spoke briefly to Ygor on percussion and Juan Francisco on guitar and a beat began, an improvised rhythm. The three boys, then became four and alternated with improvised verses in Arabic, French, Italian and again in Arabic. The audience went wild and clapped their hands to the beat. Then together, Gen Rosso and the rappers for the grand finale. Everyone was involved: prison guards, detainees, management. The visitors who organized the initiative also joined in the dancing: New Horizons, Focolare, Emmanuel Community, Fazenda de Esperanza Community, Shalom, Casa Do Menor, Belem Mission, the Easter Morning Sentinels, Lumen Community, Anspaz Community, in synergy with the Diocese of Rome. Hope exists and so do the talents of these young people. Dr. Maria Vittoria Menenti, Director of the Institute took the mike and thanked the youth of the juvenile institution and Gen Rosso, with the hope that such an event can happen again. The time flew. We had to leave. Farewells with handshakes, hugs, pats on the back, big smiles. Come back soon! Leaving, many were thinking of Gospel phrase, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I will be among them” (Mt. 18:20) – when you try to love each other, the presence of God makes wonderful things happen. Even more so when you experience it in a place like this, full of suffering, anger, despair, but also and above all hope. The boys went back to their cells. Gen Rosso began a new journey. Everyone carried something profound with them: all strongly recharged by the same inexhaustible source of joy and hope.
The worldwide action “They Dislodged Jesus” to remember the true meaning of Christmas. Azur Company’s Christmas novelties: puzzles that tell the story of Jesus’ birth and the joy at Christmas for children around the world. Christmas is approaching, and as always, the Gen4 — Focolare boys and girls ages four to ten — are in the forefront of reminding everyone of the true meaning of this celebration, bringing Jesus back to the center of Christmas. In all communities around the world, the production of the small statues of Baby Jesus has begun, which, close to Christmas, the Gen4 will offer in the streets, squares, shopping centers to remind everyone of the birth of Jesus, the “birthday boy”! Any donations received will go to help many children in countries forgotten by the media, but facing serious difficulties, such as the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela or for places where children suffer from ongoing wars or other needs also identified locally. This action, entitled “They Dislodged Jesus,” was born in 1997 and has a very precise meaning: not to be conditioned by consumerism, but to bring back to the center of Christmas the positive values, of peace, solidarity, universal fraternity. The idea had stemmed from a reflection by Chiara Lubich who was in Switzerland in the run-up to Christmas. Walking through the brightly-lit streets of a large city, she had been struck by the lights, the pretty decorations, the lots of richness, but most of all by the absence of reference to the primary meaning of Christmas. And so she wrote: “This rich world has ‘grabbed’ Christmas and all its entailments, and has dislodged Jesus! (…) It is banking on Christmas for the best profit of the year. But it doesn’t think about Jesus.” So, since 1997, thousands of Gen4 around the world have accepted Chiara Lubich’s invitation to bring Jesus back to the center of Christmas. This year’s event has the theme “Let’s bring the joy of Jesus to everyone!”:. And alongside this annual custom, the Gen4 International Center in collaboration with the Azur company produced two Christmas items to bring a message of beauty and peace. These are two puzzles: “the Christmas of the Children of the World” and “the beautiful story of Christmas.” The first is the classic puzzle to be put together, consisting of 96 tiles. The second, on the other hand, consists of six puzzle cards, six drawings that tell the story of Jesus’ birth from the arrival in Bethlehem to the coming of the Magi. On the back you can write Christmas greetings, then you can unravel the puzzle and put it in the enclosed envelope and give it as a gift. But the six puzzles can also be used to retell and relive this beautiful story with the little ones, aided also by a leaflet with the text of the story. The puzzles bear the title in 5 languages (Italian, English, Spanish, French, Portuguese (Brazilian)). If you need any info on the action They dislodged Jesus you can contact the Gen4 Center, while for the two puzzles you can visit the Azur site.
Penetrate the hearts and behaviour of modern day children, teenagers and young adults and accompany them in their journey of learning and development – this is at the basis of the podcast “EDU FOR UNITY, released on 27th November, 2023 on the Spotify channel of the Focolare Movement. How important is it today to understand the best way to approach each other? And with regard to children, teenagers and young adults, how can we adults, parents, teachers and educators be more attentive to them, how can we best support and accompany them in their journey of education and development? These are the questions that, over the next few weeks, will be tackled by the podcast, “EDU FOR UNITY”, which starts on 27th November, 2023. The idea came from the “EduxEdu, Be Educated to Educate” team, which coordinates the international training program for educators promoted by the Focolare Movement, in partnership with the Sophia University Institute in Loppiano and the Lumsa (Libera Università degli Studi Maria Ss. Assunta) University of Rome. A few days after the publication of the Guidelines for Training in the Protection of Minors and Vulnerable Persons (SCVA) drawn up by the Focolare Movement and in the light of the many challenges that the world places before us, Edu For Unity proposes, as in a journey, to indicate the destination through a new educational culture of childhood and adolescence in which the direction of the compass changes: today’s children and young people are not the object of education, but are active subjects immersed in society with their specificity, their fragility, their strengths, their talents. Each stage of this journey will indicate the path to be traced, with the help of an international team of experts in sociology, psychology, pedagogy and theology. To learn more about it, we interviewed Roberta Formisano, one of the authors of this project. Where did the idea for this podcast come from and to whom is it directed? This podcast stems from the desire to pay more attention to the whole world of youth, teenagers, children and young adults who, especially in recent years, have been forced into isolation and confinement due to Covid. This has led an increase in fears and insecurities for many of them and many of these fears come precisely from the difficulty experienced in building relationships. The situation has therefore raised further questions about how to get in touch with them, how to educate them, how to find new strategies to get closer to them so as to be able to accompany them on their journey. The podcast came from an idea of the EduxEdu team and is aimed at parents, teachers, educators and leaders of groups in parishes or ecclesial movements, all those who accompany children, teenagers and young adults in the formation aspects of their lives, whether spiritual, cultural or even sports, of any kind. What topics have you chosen and how will they be organized? The podcast was created with the aim of offering relatively short inputs on the theme of the fragility of children, teenagers and young adults. The thematic path that has been chosen starts from listening, the topic of this first season, and then goes on to delve deeper into friendship, conflict, emotions, limits and coherence. According to our team of experts, these are the six keywords in which it is possible to decline “fragility” and they will be the themes of the six seasons of this podcast. Each episode opens with a conversation between a presenter (who for this first season will be the Argentinian journalist Anita Martinez) and an expert who can guide us on the subject. In each episode, we have tried to include experiences so that the various issues that arise in everyday life are answered not only from the theoretical point of view that an expert can provide but demonstrate an impact in everyday life. Each season ends with a relevant thought from Chiara Lubich, founder of the Focolare Movement. The title of the podcast highlights the word “unity”. In what sense is it used? The title EDU FOR UNITY can be explained by referring to the educating community, that is, the awareness that beyond the essential skills to be able to understand the fragilities of children and teenagers, listen to them and make them our own, it is only together, united, as a community that “listens”, can we can hope to be effective. What were the biggest challenges? The major challenges included continually remembering our target audience and that the underlying objective was to “take care” of children, teenagers and young adults. Another challenge was to bring together the various aspects which distinguish the people who collaborated, each with their own professional, cultural, academic background. We were invited to get involved without leaning on the expertise of those who “teach”, but with great simplicity, trying to be concise and using simple language to be able to reach everyone. The experts worked together for a long time to produce these first four episodes. It was also a collaboration between the various schools of thought and study on the subject: sociological, educational and psychological. Even at a technical and recording level, it was a huge challenge, because we involved people from many countries around the world and, up to now, the podcast has been recorded and translated in Italian and Spanish. In addition, there was great cooperation between generations and this brought various voices together, including those of the youngest. What do you hope those who listen to this podcast will gain from it? We hope that listening to this podcast will provide a space that each person can take, not only in order to be of help to and to accompany the young, but to reflect and work on themselves. That everyone can really find suggestions to put into practice in daily life. We would like everyone to say to themselves: “This is not just a lesson. Do I really do this every day? How can I go about implementing it?” We hope that it will be useful to create a vision of a better society, one that is not only focused on itself, closed in and indifferent; that helps adults to hear the voice of children, teenagers and young adults and to accompany them in their path of formation and development.
Effective today, November 20, 2023, the new Guidelines for Training in the Protection of Minors and Persons in Vulnerable Situations developed by the Focolare Movement are available. Margarita Gómez and Étienne Kenfack, Counselors of the Movement’s International Center on the aspect of Physical Life and Nature, offer us some clarifications. Illustrating the characteristics necessary to make a concrete commitment to the protection of the life and dignity of every person: this is what distinguishes the new Guidelines for Training in the Protection of Minors and Vulnerable Persons (SCVA) in the Focolare Movement, released today, November 20, 2023, International Children’s and Adolescents’ Day. A work that has seen the direct collaboration of 40 specialists and people involved in this field from all continents and that aims exclusively to provide the necessary elements so that in every country where the Focolare Movement operates, an adequate training strategy can be developed that is oriented towards prevention and eradicating any kind of abuse, both within the Movement and in the environments where its members are found (work, neighborhood, school). As early as 2013, the Movement had been engaged in training for the protection of minors, with widespread work in all the countries where it operates and a six-hour course that contained the basic principles. This training effort as of December 2022 had reached 17,000 people, and although the training was open to all, it was mainly carried out by people who had responsibility or direct contact in activities with minors. Following the report on the serious cases of sexual abuse recorded in France, published one year after the GCPS consulting survey, a strong need arose to offer targeted training to all members of the Focolare Movement of every age, vocation, nation, role. For this reason, the Guidelines are a universal tool, leaving ample room for appropriate inculturation and specific implementation in the particular context of origin. “The training is aimed at everyone, and by ‘everyone’ we mean not only the members of the Movement but also the people who work in our facilities-said Étienne Kenfack. The Guidelines, on the other hand, are aimed at the Movement leaders in the different geographical areas and their teams who will be responsible for implementing them.” The Guidelines will come into effect on January 1, 2024, for a period of 20 months ad experimentum. A period of comparison in order to gather all the changes and transformations that will be needed for the future. “The document – continues Margarita Gómez – rests on a key resource for us, and that is communion: therefore, we will work in a network, there will be an international commission and local teams that will carry out the project; there will be moments of exchange, with online links to help us resolve doubts, to share good practices. It is no coincidence that we have decided to title our training program ‘All responsible for all.’ I hope that these Guidelines will find great acceptance in our communities and that in a few months we may have given a significant boost to training in this area.”
Maria Grazia Berretta
Watch the video (activate English subtitles) https://youtu.be/OsZW-DC_E7U
