![Cuba in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy]()
Nov 9, 2012 | Focolare Worldwide
After Hurricane Sandy passed over the eastern side of the island, they wrote from Havana: “The city of Santiago and the surrounding areas were hit strongly. It was expected to be a tropical storm but in a few hours it turned into a category 3 hurricane. The worst situations involved the destruction of homes and farmlands.”
According to government sources, at first count 15,392 homes have been totally destroyed and 36,544 partially destroyed. This does not include the number of hospitals, schools, churches and other public infrastructure. The damages caused by the hurricane have comprimised already comprimised housing situations.
The situation is quite difficult. There is a scarcity of food supplies and reconstruction materials. After a week, the electricity has been restored.
The Focolare community – especially young people and teenagers – have been very actively involved in providing help, unblocking the roads and repairing damaged buildings in the quarters. They are preparing meals for the poor in local parishes.
They write: “A group from Havana travelled right away with a van full of food supplies and basic supplies, but especially to be with the people and share their pain and suffering, trying to help in any way they could. We brought the supplies into their homes, and the people couldn’t find enough words to thank us! Everything arrived at just the right moment. In one family there was no more salt, in another no candles or matchsticks. Others hadn’t eaten in days. . . Above all, we brought comfort and support from the Movement around the world. Our own city was devsastated, but, nevertheless, the mutual love among us grew stronger and the sense of brotherhood towards all helps us in not being defeated by the sadness.”
The Focolare NGO (Azione per un Mondo Unito), supports several micro-businesses in Cuba with future development prospects. Moreover it has offered help in repairing damages caused by previous hurricanes. A pilot project is presently underway that would involve similar future projects on a vaster scale.
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To know more or to support the project:
AMU (Action for a United World) – http://www.amu-it.eu
Associazione Azione per un Mondo Unito
c/- Banca Popolare Etica (Rome Branch)
IBAN: IT16G0501803200000000120434
SWIFT/BIC CCRTIT2184D
Description: “Progetto: La mia casa è la tua casa”
![Cuba in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy]()
Nov 8, 2012 | Focolare Worldwide, Senza categoria
Children listen wide-eyed to Pietro’s explanation. For them it is a school day in a classroom without desks or other learning aids, and the teaching is done primarily by nature itself. Lots of schoolchildren pass through the farm Fattoria Loppiano Prima, where people learn to cultivate their love for plants and animals.
Pietro Isolan is a young qualified farming expert, who for 18 years has worked hard at the farm in Loppiano: ‘It was also as a result of the economic crisis that we were forced to come up with new ideas to keep the business going. One of these was the “teaching farm”, a project for children and students at technical and professional colleges. It was to be an open-air workshop, with space allocated to rearing animals and a market garden. The objective was to give a hands-on experience of a production method where you would get to know the different kinds of animals and vegetables, and where we offer our experience centred on respect for human persons and for the environment.
The curriculum is made up of various modules that can be adapted to the needs of schools and that allow students to come in stages throughout the year.
The foundation of this new development was a personal experience that Pietro shared with other colleagues on the farm, turning a possible difficulty into a strong point for everyone: ‘After many years of work and following a personal and spiritual crisis, I realized that I had an experience I could offer, but that I had some things still to learn. And perhaps, if push came to shove, I would not have been able to support my family.
Pietro tells of a profound personal journal in relationship with nature seen as the manifestation of God’s creativity. It was a spiritual search that led him to understand more of the secrets of “permaculture” (sustainable use of the environment) and of various techniques seeking to optimize agricultural production while conserving the ecosystem. This sustainable agriculture is in keeping with the production philosophy of the farm, which has always been attentive to these kinds of values: ‘We created a market garden that was completely sustainable and which enriched the agricultural ecosystem. We planted and tended it together with the children who visited during those early years. Nowadays we grow seasonal vegetables and rear poultry.”
This latest development of the farm at Loppiano is a further demonstration of the common spirit animating every step of the way: trying to build relationships of fraternity, genuine relationships for people and for the environment. Pietro concludes, ‘In fact I’m convinced that, as everything is connected in nature, also in relationships between individuals, and in relationships between institutions, it is possible to generate synergies and links that increase exponentially both efficiency and the spread of good practice. At the end of the day I have to say I’ve experienced at first hand an expression that I read a while back and that really struck me: “Your true work is to create beauty, your true social action is to create awareness.” ’
Compiled by Paolo Balduzzi
Nov 7, 2012 | Focolare Worldwide
“I lost my Mother, my uncle and his wife at the beginning of the war in 1993. All three of them were murdered by some people from our own quarter, people whom we knew well. Then Father took our orphaned cousins to live with us. There were fourteen of us altogether and Father never showed any partiality towards any one.
In order to keep us together Father decided not to remarry. Being the oldest, I helped him out because the smaller children were feeling their mother’s absence. To my proposals that we seek justice against those who had killed our relatives, Father always helped us to forgive, explaining to us the significance of reconciliation.
He suggested to my brothers that they start a “club”, an association for young people that would promote peace and reconciliation. This club contributed to returning peace to people’s spirits in our Commune.
I live in Italy now. When spring arrived, I received news that he had been admitted to hospital, and I had the idea of writing to a few friends asking for their prayers. Then he was transferred to the intensive care unit, and I rushed back to Burundi, I found him suffering greatly. My brothers and sisters were doing everything they could for him. I thought about all the love he had for his children, the love that he showed to so many others, including those who had murdered our relatives. I remembered the Word of Life we were living: “For to those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away” (Mt. 13:12). And I remembered Jesus on the Cross.
On the day following my arrival Dad departed peacefully for Heaven. It was as if he had been waiting for me. Later as I was pondering over the words that the Archbishop had spoken during my father’s funeral – in which he recalled their conversations about reconciliation and peace – it was confirmed to me, as Chiara Lubich reminded us, that Heaven is a home we will live in up there, but that we build here on earth.”
Maria-Goretti (Burundi)
![Cuba in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy]()
Nov 6, 2012 | Focolare Worldwide
Following an invitation from the Nuncio, Mgr Joseph Spiteri, three focolarini from India, Marilu, Ala Maria and Rey, spent twelve days in Sri Lanka. They found a Focolare community that was small but full of life, despite the fact that it is nine years since the last visit – the terrible civil war, which has left marks that are still visible, only finished last year.
With the Cardinal of Colombo
Msgr. Malcolm Ranjith
During the visit it was possible to meet the Archbishop of Colombo, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, who met Chiara Lubich in the 70s and who is deeply interested in the Movement’s experience of inter-religious dialogue in India, and most especially of its ‘dialogue of life’.
This experience was also spoken about by Dr A. T. Ariyaratne, the Buddhist founder of the Gandhian Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement, which in Coimbatore last January received the ‘Defender of Peace’ prize, given in the past also to Chiara Lubich. Some of the people who work with him were extremely pleased to learn of the relationship between the Focolare and the Shanti Ashram in India and expressed the wish that something similar could happen with them in Sri Lanka.
A visit to Dr. A.T. Ariyaratne
A wonderful moment, full of a sense of family, took place in the meeting with the community of the Movement made up of 25 persons who met the Focolare many years ago and who still desire to live its spirituality. Here a few impressions. A former teacher said: ‘I am going through a difficult moment but, coming here, I have understood that I must be the first to love.’ A woman who came for the first time said, ‘Seeing you so happy cannot leave me indifferent. You have given me courage and I shall start living in the same way.’ And a nun said, ‘Hearing your experiences and seeing you so vibrant has reawoken me.’ Mgr Spiteri, who was also present, at the end of the meeting gave a blessing, saying, ‘Now we have come to know this life, above all in this year of faith, we must be living witnesses of the word.’
Another moment of light was with the bishop emeritus Nicholas Marcus Fernando who, after he had been told about the Focolare’s inter-religious work, said, ‘Love is what’s needed. Before I thought that it was goodness, but that is an abstract concept. You need love for dialogue and for everything.’
![Cuba in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy]()
Nov 4, 2012 | Focolare Worldwide
The Lebanese chief of police was killed and 40 houses in the Achrafieh neighbourhood destroyed in a terrorist outrage in Beirut on 19 October. Many people were left homeless and in need of aid. Jacques, a member of Youth for a United World (Y4UW) who had been at the Genfest in Budapest – an event called ‘Let’s bridge’ that brought more than 12,000 young people to the Hungarian capital – had the idea of holding a concert to raise funds for the homeless and give a message of peace.
It all began with a conversation on WhatsApp. Jacques is also president of a Music Club at his university. After chatting via WhatsApp with several members of Y4UW and other members of his Music Club the idea emerged to have a concert. In just a few days more than 2,500 young people confirmed via Facebook that they would be present. The word spread through TV and radio interviews and articles in newspapers.
On the eve of the concert, organized together with other Lebanese NGOs, the Y4UW in Lebanon wrote, ‘Something much bigger than us is happening, but we go ahead with God’s help. We feel that it is God who is working miracles, because at the moment there are too many political divisions in Lebanon, and they have been made worse by the bomb. Many young people are disgusted by what the politicians have been saying. This concert is like a light in the midst of deep darkness, a message of hope, of peace and unity among Lebanese people. With this concert we want to give witness to our ideal and to the unity of Lebanese young people.’
The colour code for the concert was white, a sign of peace. At the entrance white strips we handed out, just as they had been at the Genfest, as a sign of a commitment to build peace. ‘The concert left a trail of enthusiasm. We feel as if the Genfest has continued,’ Y4UW also wrote.
It was an important event, therefore, under the banner of the United World Project launched at Budapest (www.unitedworldproject.org). The project is being made effective by means of small or large fragments of fraternity, like this one in Lebanon, building up a more fraternal world even in the most sensitive and risky places.
![Cuba in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy]()
Nov 3, 2012 | Focolare Worldwide
In Sassello, the town where Chiara Luce was born, from 27 to 28 October a large number of young people met together to celebrate her life. The title chosen for the weekend was: ‘I have everything’. In four stages the young people went around the town and listened to many things from people who had witnessed the life of Chiara Luce. They felt as if they were having a truly personal rendezvous with her. Meeting Chiara Luce’s parents, Ruggero and Maria Teresa Badano was a powerful moment. They spoke of many details from Chiara Luce’s life right up to the last period of her life when she began her intense journey towards Heaven. Immediately after that there was a time of adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, where readings from some things written by Chiara Luce were interspersed between pauses for thought, and then a visit to the cemetery, to ‘get together’ with Chiara Luce in a moment’s intimate conversation. Chiara Luce’s young people, however, with find it easy to go from moments of profound reflection to moments of joyful recreation, all lived with the same intensity and a spirit aiming at the highest values, as was seen at the party at the end of the day run by a young DJ.
At Mass on Sunday more than 700 people crowded into the church. In the homily the parish priest of Sassello invited the young people to have courage and trust in God, following the example of Chiara Luce who one day encouraged her mother saying, ‘Trust in God and you have done everything.’ In the afternoon the programme carried on and the small parish hall was unable to contain all those present, and so the show about the Chiara Luce’s life, put on by the theatrical company Passi di Luce (Steps of Light) from Castelfiorentino (near Florence), had be done in two sittings.
By now Chiara Luce and the example of her life have gone irrepressibly beyond the confines of the region of Liguria where Sassello is located. This can be seen both in the fact that in Sassello there were young people from 33 different nations and in a Skype call to Mexico where in the little town called El Diamante (The Diamond) there is a chapel dedicated to Blessed Chiara Luce. There in Mexico 1,700 people had held three days of celebrations at which a musical about Chiara Luce’s life had been a great hit. There was tremendous joy also in Isernia, in Italy, celebrating Chiara Luce’s life in a musical show called ‘Be happy, because I am’. It was put on by artists from Azioni Musicali from Loppiano (near Florence) for more than 700 people.
The general impression is that in these few days the ‘torch’ of Chiara Luce has been handed on to many, many young people, just as she wanted.
