Korea – A Pearl for the Whole of Asia
From the heart of Europe it takes about twelve hours to reach the farthest peninsula of the Eurasian landmass: Korea, ‘the Land of the Morning Calm’ as it is called. This country is one of the few in the world still divided between North and South. South Korea, with its 48 million inhabitants – 12 million of them living in Seoul, the capital – has had the presence of the Movement since the ’60s. After the opening of the first focolare in 1969, the Movement spread swiftly throughout the country, and was welcomed by people of every age and social group. Now there are five centres in Seoul, two in Daegu and a Centre for meetings and formation in Kyeonggido. We offer here a few brief notes to give an idea of the life of the Movement in Korea today. 
Interreligious Dialogue is typical of a country under the cultural influence of major religions, such as Buddhism and Confucianism, that also has a strong Christian presence. We need only indicate the latest significant event: Han Mi-Sook, a focolarina and a member of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Korea’s Committee for Promoting Christian Unity and Interreligious Dialogue (http://english.cbck.or.kr), accompanied the Ven. Ja Seung, president of the ‘Jogye Order’ of Korean Buddhism and Dr Gun Duk Choi, president of the Confucian Association, to last October’s Assisi meeting. They were active in their participation. The president of the Confucian Association and his colleagues later visited Loppiano, the Focolare’s international little town near Florence, and the Movement’s Centre in Rome. He said, ‘I hope you realize your dream “May they all be one.”’ 
Social Initiative. Heaengbok Maeul, ‘The Village of Happiness’, is a monthly project that has been active for eight years. It helps foreign workers, refugees from North Korea (more than 20,000) and many others in need. Among its services, the project offers a range of medical services, food and clothing, hairdressing and lessons in Korean. ‘To begin with,’ the volunteers with the project say, ‘people were wary, but now they feel loved, and bit by bit they open up and they even bring their own food to be shared.’ 
Politics and economy. The Movement for Unity in Politics (MUP) in Korea began in 2004. It was the initiative of a group of Members of Parliament who, since 2008, have been meeting once a month in the ‘Political Forum for Unity’. The group conducts research and is recognized by the Korean Parliament. Its activity extends to a ‘Social Forum’ open to journalists, lawyers, civil servants, doctors and economists, which meets in Parliament every two months with about 30 people each time. Among the activities promoted by the MUP in 2010 there was the campaign for ‘a purer form of language’. About a hundred students of journalism from several universities monitored the language used by politicians and Members of Parliament in their political activity, interviews and speeches. Their research was a stimulus to politicians to be more attentive in how they spoke and concluded with the giving of a prize. The Movement for Unity in Politics has also worked to set up two schools for young politicians and interested students. The courses have ten lessons and so far have been attended by 58 people. Maria Voce’s Visit. In January 2010 the President of the Focolare Movement together with Giancarlo Faletti, the Movement’s Co-President, met about 1,700 members of the Movement. They spent two days together in a festive atmosphere to get to know one another, share the latest news, and to deepen their understanding and living of the spirituality of unity. Maria Voce and Giancarlo Faletti also met several bishops and, in Parliament, various politicians who are part of the Movement for Unity in Politics. The Korean community experienced a renewal of Chiara Lubich’s hope for them, expressed in 1982, when she asked the members of the Movement to be ‘locomotives’, that is, a driving force, for the whole of Asia: a daily challenge and commitment.
“Skip a meal and give the money for the Horn of Africa.” During the past four months the Youths for a United World of Costa Rica have thus launched in their country the Skip a Meal campaign in order to collect funds for this African region, where over 12 million persons live in a dramatic situation caused by the exceptional drought. 
The young people have organised two cultural events at which famous musicians and personalities from their country participated. Both events were a combination of music, poetry, personal experiences and audio-visual creations that brought the participants closer to the reality of the soul of Africa. Skip a meal was mainly inspired by the desire to collaborate to build a more united world; above all, they wanted to love the others in a concrete way by sending a monetary help from the proceeds of the tickets sold for the artistic events. “It was really an unusual experience: the excitement, the enthusiasm, the commitment, the love for this face of Jesus crucified and abandoned and the certainty of His presence amongst us were the ingredients essential to the preparation, during which we became aware of a magnificent reality: not only we were helping Africa, but Africa was helping us.” Through collaboration with various companies and organisations we were given food, infrastructures, and space on the mass media that allowed us to spread the initiative and involve youths and adults who identify themselves with this cause. All this became an occasion to divulge the idea of a united world. 
We have also started to build a direct relationship with the Youths for a United World of Kenya, who writes to us: “Thanks a lot for Skip a meal; we are enthusiastic knowing that Cost Rica is united with us to face these difficult challenges that signify also a sorrow for humanity.” 
Skip a Meal is not a beneficent activity, but an experience of reciprocal enrichment, of sharing, and the opportunity to enter in the African culture. We realise that sharing our competencies with the “Other” we can transcend space and overcome the differences, the geographical, ethnic and cultural separation. Skip a Meal makes us realise that two completely different cultures can unite, understand each other and help each other: “I am because we are.” (Ubuntu philosophy). We are all part of this worldwide net of unity that is being woven. It is up to us to continue to work to build a new humanity. Youth for a United World – Costa Rica Links: Twitter: skipamealer Facebook: 
“They are young; they’re like a current: everybody sees their good number, but it is the wave that pushes them. Whoever rides on the wave, travels far, without effort.” This is the beginning of the letter from Father Pietro Raimondi, chaplain of the San Vittore prison in Milan, where a group of young people of the Focolare Movement, on Christmas Eve, brought a breeze of warmth, living together with the inmates a “silent miracle of light”. The whole story begins with the youth having started to animate the Sunday Mass in the prison: a moving experience that left its mark. A few months before Christmas, they wanted to launch the initiative “Good inside and good outside”, with the challenge to succeed in collecting sufficient boxes of panettone (Christmas cake) for each cell of the prison. “The cell is the only home of the inmate,” write the Youth for a United World, “and therefore in every cell – that is in every home of the big city that is the prison of San Vittore – we want to bring about the atmosphere of Christmas.” “It is they who come out with the ideas, the proposals, the best intuitions,” continues the chaplain. And whoever tells me that they are inconstant, and changing, I say that this is typical of liquid. But I add that liquid has a magic property: you cannot compress it. The pressure they exercise is enormous, they move mountains. They are young and they put pressure always inventing something new. Who listens to them is lucky and walks on water.” 
“Today we took the boxes of panettone to San Vittore!” Now it is one of the young people who speaks. “We were a nice team: some of us unloaded from the vans, some filled the bags, some took them to the metal detector… there was work for all! Then four of us had the beautiful gift of being the ones to distribute the panettoni in the cells. It is impossible to describe the emotion when we stepped over the threshold of the cells, and gave the panettone to each inmate, and saw their joy and gratitude. For the first time after a long time they could see not only guards and their cell companions. And so we experienced a different Christmas… a much more real one.” 
“The generosity of adults often sediments in routine,” Father Pietro writes. He has seen many Christmases at San Vittore. “Even the donation of the panettone to the inmates risks being transformed into an institutional gesture. Always the same person makes the donation, with the same van, belonging to the same firm. And the mechanical gesture of distribution kills the momentum of the original initiative.” “But these young people say to you “Well, why don’t we?” First they set a challenge to themselves and then to the whole world. They say, “We will not buy not even one box of panettone and we will not seek those who make a large donation. We will talk about the dark world behind the perimeter walls. We will talk in the streets, in the schools, to friends and in families. We will talk about those who we do not care whether they are good or bad, guilty or innocent, but who certainly need a gesture of love.” Those gestures that are not an aid to fill a void, but something over and above. And the response has been beyond all expectations. They aimed at distributing 450 panettoni, one for each cell. Soon they became 500, then 1000, and then 1400 and then they lost count. Today in prison, there were 1553 men and 96 women, without counting the personnel and operators. And it appears that everyone received a gift…” .
«I’ve been working in an NGO since 2008. I started out in this job coordinating an area under the direction of the executive director. Then, in the end of 2010 I took some holidays. When I returned to work, I found that the executive director had offered her resignation and I was asked to take her place. When I began, I found things that were left suspended and among them something rather delicate. It had to do with theft. During 2007 and 2008 the ex-director had stolen the taxes from the salaries of the workers and from the NGO, and had not paid them to the State. And so we had to pay a fine of some 75,000 dollars, which was an enormous amount for our organization. Perhaps to cover up what she had done, the former director had paid a certain amount on behalf of each worker that corresponded to the amount that had been deducted from their salary in those years. And she kept for himself the amount that the organization was expected to pay to the State. Each of us received this unexpected bonus without knowing the reason why, and we were very happy and surprised. I received an additional 12,000 dollars in my salary. Happy as I was, my conscience told me that something was wrong, and so I decided to return the extra monies. I contacted some lawyers to know what I should do and they advised me to falsify the documents, even my work contract, etc. According to them, the State would never have figured out the situation and would have enforced the fine anyway. But I wanted to remain faithful to my decision to build a more just society. “What would Jesus do in my place?” I asked myself. He would certainly have gone against the current. And so I decided to act accordingly and even to involve my colleagues in my decision. 
I told them that the first thing they should was to return the monies that didn’t belong to us and to write to the Finance Ministry explaining what had occurred and asking that the fine be cancelled. To my great surprise all of my colleagues agreed this. Meanwhile, the ex-director, who had left the country, let me know that she was very angry with me and that my decision to return the monies to the State was exaggerated. She couldn’t understand my actions and said that this would destroy the team spirit that it took years to build. But for me and my colleagues it meant being faithful to our duties as workers, certain that God – who sees all things – would help us. After three months of contacting the Finance Ministry, we received the happy news that the fine had been cancelled. Moreover, the officials were impressed with the honesty of our gesture in returning the monies to the State. We experienced an answer from God toward those who love and strive to remain faithful to Christian their values. Recently we had to submit our NGO’s financial statement. The Tax Council concluded by recognizing our NGO as a reference point for the transparency of its administration and for the way in which we solved problems together». A. G. – Luanda – Angola
“As you know, a new chapter in the history of Egypt had begun this year, with the unexpected fall of the dictatorial regime. At nearly a year from the initial signs of hope and freedom as a breeze of fresh air, we find ourselves in a delicate phase where along with the great economic crisis and fear of the future, insecurity and discouragement reign among all. But in spite of this difficult situation, we have seen with astonishment the intervention of God who, in a discrete way, is helping us sew a hidden tapestry, weaved with real brotherly relationships. 
While the newspapers and television were transmitting to you the bloody attacks on churches in various parts of the country, and the acts of violence against the crowds during the peaceful manifestations in Tahrir Square, at the same exact time, in one of the districts of Great Cairo, Christians and Muslims were working together,– all animated by the Ideal of unity that Chiara has transmitted to us – in a project, even if a small one, but is a symbol of unity: the project “I belong”. In front of the mistrust, disinterest and indifference of many Egyptians, the goal of the project is to give back to the people the sense of belonging to their country, encouraging them to discover its cultural treasures, starting by cleaning the dirty and neglected angles of the city. Thus, an initiative was born – promoted by the Egyptian artist Elhamy Naguib – to paint murals that express brotherhood, peace and harmony that help make people responsible in civic engagements. So, we launched ourselves together with 40 young people and adults, for 2 days, painting the wall of a school in a poor district, with the theme “We have the right to dream!”. We were 8 months away from the 25th January revolution. Even if everything was legal, the next day we got news from the municipality to erase the painting, without any explanations. We felt as our small flame was dying.