![Margarita and the Women from Tinku Kamayo]()
8 Mar 2012 | Focolare Worldwide
Watch the video Margarita Ramirez de Moreno is a volunteer of the Focolare Movement. She is an artisan and entrepreneur, the first to graduate from Santa Maria Aurora of Catamarca School in Argentina. After thirty-five years, the schoolwas recognized and financed by the government of Argentina because of the great educational contribution it has made in the study and recovery of symbols and techniques of Quechua cutlure. 
«I was born in Santa Maria, in a region at the foot of the Andes, rich with aboriginal culture, but very poor. I am a descendent of the “calchaquies” (calciachies) aboriginals. I’m married and have seven children. I studied for twelve years at the Aurora School. There, besides reading, writing and weaving, I learned to live the spirituality of unity. In 2003, faced with the widespread unemployment, I started a spinning mill to supply the school’s weaving workshop. It wasn’t easy to convince the women of my land, who have always been discriminated, to take up the work of weaving again. They had to cross rivers and walk many kilometers every day in order to reach the spinning mill. We had no means. Little by little each one offered what she had: a spindle, balls of wool or her ability in this traditional art. There was still the problem of expensive machinery. One day I had to ask for a ride and I confided my concern to the driver. 
He told me that he knew how to build weaving machines. “Can you make them for us?” I asked. He replied: “Yes, you can pay me when you can.” There were other obstacles as well: we lost the place where we were working and our most expert woman quit. “With all that is happening, maybe we should just give up!” said one of the girls, expressing the doubt we all had. 
While we were moving to a new location, we found an image of Our Lady. It seemed very significant to me and I proposed to the others that we make a pact: to work every day with love for one another. Shortly afterwards, we received a donation with which we were able to buy property and equipment. That was the beginning of the “TINKU KAMAYU” studio, which means “Working together.” In the beginning there were eight of us. Today, two years later, there are 18 craftswomen and a growing production. Now I feel that I am part of a large project and involved with many other calchaquies people. We have found our identity again, and with it, hope, cultural growth, the possibility of work for ourselves and for others, and all the wealth of our cultural roots and our people. Now we feel that we are useful, no longer humiliated, but appreciated and capable of expressing our thoughts».
![Margarita and the Women from Tinku Kamayo]()
6 Mar 2012 | Focolare Worldwide
«At this time when universities are affected by an economic, social and cultural crisis, what made you start up this project and what is new about Sophia?» Giorgia, an Italian, the students’ representative, asked the theologian Piero Coda, President of Sophia. She was putting into words the questions of numerous students, interested young people and those about to enrol, all present on 1 March this year in Loppiano for an internet conference call covering the four corners of the earth during the first Sophia Open Day. So, what is new? Bringing together rigorous academic discipline and wisdom – hence the name Sophia – understood as a ‘transdisciplinary’ approach that draws from the roots Christian revelation: this is what is new. Sophia’s mission is to produce men and woman capable of revisioning human destiny, as Piero Coda pointed out in live a video interview. Up to this point 150 students have studied or are currently studying at Sophia, and about 30 of them have already achieved their degrees. «Sophia began years ago with our summer schools, Prof. Coda recalled, and the purpose of these was to relate various disciplines to the charism of Chiara Lubich so as to overcome the fragmentation that can be observed among them. Today the Institute has reached its fourth year and it offers a formation programme that aims at going beyond the ‘schizophrenia’ that can be experienced between academic development and the social, political and economic challenges of the world today». 
There are several new approaches in the educational programme, as presented by some of the Institute’s teaching staff: Judith Povilus, vice-president and provost, Antonio Maria Baggio, professor of Political Philosophy, the theologian Alessandro Clemenza and the economist Giuseppe Argiolas. From next September the master’s degree in ‘Foundations and prospects for a Cultural of Unity’ will have four specialist areas: political studies, trinitarian ontology, economy and management and, in conclusion, the ‘culture of unity’. This last is aimed at students coming from any area of specialization, open to building a new world and willing to highlight the dimension of human relationships. After this presentation several of Sophia’s students spoke. They came from various countries across the continents. Metta, a Buddhist from Thailand, grappling with studying in an environment that has a Christian inspiration, said: «For me studying here is mainly about a relationship of fraternity and these relationships are the language we all, students and teachers, have in common even in the midst of our differences. It’s a dimension I find also in my own religion». Marco, an Italian whose first degree was in Motor Sciences, attends Sophia’s first year: «Looking to the future, the choice to go to Sophia has made me feel that I don’t wish so much to deepen my understanding of a specific discipline. Rather I need a formation that, as much as possible, will open up my cultural horizons and my awareness and make me better placed to face the world of work. At the moment, it doesn’t offer much certainty and so I have to be a self-starter».
![Margarita and the Women from Tinku Kamayo]()
4 Mar 2012 | Focolare Worldwide
Burundi is a small country, situated between two giant nations: the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the United Republic of Tanzania. It is endowed with a landscape of extraordinary richness and beauty, and yet it is one of the poorest countries on the planet. It is home to three peoples: Hutu, Tutsi and Pigmies who share the same language and culture. It’s green hills hide the suffering cries of many how came to know violence and death during long decades of conflict and dictatorship. It was only in 2002 that Burundi emerged from a political and ethnic conflict that displaced a million and brought death to 300 thousand others. 
The Ideal of the Focolare Movement has also reached this place in the heart of Africa, only a few kilometers south of the Equator. Its roots go back to 1968, when a Belgian family moved to Bujumbura to find work and through the witness of their life, shed new light on the Christian message. Almost contemporaneously, another cell was formed around Fr Alberton from the African Missionaries, at the parish church in Mubimbi. 
1979 was an important year in the history of the Focolare in this nation. At the request of the local bishops, a focolare was opened in Gitega, but following the first persecutions, the focolare made an emergency move to Bujumbura. This was the beginning of a particularly difficult period for the Movement and for the entire Church: total prohibition on holding any type of activities; churches closed during the week; the impossibility of spreading the Word of Life. 
In September 1987, with the coup, freedom was returned and it was possible to come out into the open. Little by little, people were contacted again, finding with emotion that some faraway communities, the people continued to meet regularly to share their experiences of the one copy of the Word of Life that they had preserved for years. They carried ahead for years with only one Word of the Gospel. 
Today the Movement is comprised of more than 24 thousand people in 290 groups spread throughout the country. Today the ideal of unity holds genuine hope for the people of Burundi. In a climate of tension following the war, the members of the Movement got involved in contributing along with the local Church in the process of reconciliation. There have been some interesting achievements in the economic field and some innovative things are happening in the fields of health and education. In 1999 a group of volunteers of the Focolare Movement founded the CASOBU Association (Cadre Associatif des Solidaires du Burundi), with the goal of seeking durable solutions to the problems of poverty, through the process of participation and mutual support. 
The “Chiara Luce Badano Social Center” was also begun, which cares for orphan children or children in extreme conditions of poverty in the Kinama quarter (outskirts of bujumbura), an area that was completely destroyed by the war. The words that Chiara Lubich addressed to them on 7 October 1996 remain impressed in the hearts of these Focolare members in Burundi: “Always concentrate on our “Only Treasure.” You’ll be happy and have peace, even amid the difficulties that surround you. Jesus will always be with you in your midst, to touch people’s hearts, to reawaken faith in His love, and to bring unity. I am also with you in this constantly renewed commitment, moment by moment. . .”
