Maria Voce: promoting women means promoting ‘communion’
(C) Centro Santa Chiara Audiovisivi
Living City awarded by Associated Church Press
On 5 May 2016, The Associated Church Press (Florida) conferred on Living City Magazine two awards for last year’s February, April and October issues. It received an Honourable Mention in the category “Best in Class National/International print magazines, directed to a broad audience” (Christian Century and Sojourners were the other award recipients in this category). The judges appreciated the “strong use of colour on front covers” and the full bleed and full page pictures. For the writing, they found the first person pieces the most engaging. “Unique perspectives and a strong focus on the magazine’s purpose makes for an original and interesting magazine. Good work,” was their comment. In the category “Reporting and Writing: interview (all media)”, Living City received an Award of Excellence for the article “Peace through forgiveness” published in the December 2015 issue, written by Jade Giacobbe after an encounter with Rahel Muha, whose son was murdered in 1999 at age 18. The judges wrote, “This would be a heart-breaking story were it not for the emphasis on forgiveness, and the mother providing a powerful testimony … A well-crafted story. Good can spring from evil with the proper approach to forgiveness.”
Susanne Janssen
Award-winning article: https://livingcitymagazine.com/peace-through_forgiveness
50 years of life in Asia
Prisons and the kids on the “external committee”
“We felt strongly that we wanted to immerse ourselves in the wounds of our city. We became inolved with Patrizia, a teacher and collaborator of Città Nuova magazine, who was writing a book about the children of prisoners and she had just met the Break the Wall Committee. This committee consists of 7 prisoners who were working to allow children to have a bit more than cold meetings with their fathers in large empty rooms. They wanted to hold celebrations and events that would leave the children with a happy memory of their fathers from whom they were separated. A collaboration of mutual trust was immediately established between us, the inmates on the committee, the teachers and the director. The first meeting with the prisoners took place at Christmas 2014. I was struck when the police ordered us to leave all our personal possessions behind before crossing the prison gate. We took his words to mean our prejudices as well. The detainees couldn’t believe that so many young people would spend a Saturday morning with them. Since the day of that celebration something more than a volunteer programme began: a true and deep relationship with the detainees themselves.As we described what we were doing, one of them remarked that it took a lot of courage. But for us it was a matter of trust in others even though they had committed a crime and of hope that they can change and begin again. We remember the joy of that detainee who was glad to be able to invest his talents in something legal that was not for profit – as were the illegal activities that he had been engaged in before. For him who had no children of his own, working for the children filled him with a sense of satisfaction. Last year we met with the detainees on the committee to plan another event. A thank you note they wrote conveys their joy and enthusiasm over that meeting where we were able to sit down together as if we weren’t inside the walls of a prison. We also had a snack together, yes, because they gave us a warm welcome as you would among old friends. Now they call us ‘the kids on the external committee’. At that meeting they opened up and shared with us the practical effects of inprisonment on their daily life. For example, they said that people in prison aren’t able to bring the background into focus; their eyes need to reacquire the ability to look ahead, having lost the possibility to see the horizon. One of them said goodbye to us in a note; “To the youngsters I say continue to dedicate yourselves to this activity, because often the ones who are inside need only to see that there is someone on the outside who is interested in our problems so they can have a second chance. On my part, I thank you for that.” Last March, for Father’s Day, we organised games and other activities in the mornings and afternoons. Half a day of simple things that allowed their usually divided families to spend some time together, and for their children to cherish fond memories in the area of the so delicate and difficult relationships with their fathers. Some of them were present during the visit Pope Francis made on Holy Thursday last year, and they attrended the Mass and told us how moving it was for them. It has remained a precious memory for them. They often tell us that ‘Prison takes away your feelings along with your freedom’. But perhaps now something has changed: there’s the joy of meeting and working together without any prejudice. In them we’ve discovered the face of Jesus the prisoner, Jesus the marginalised. Every time we’re leaving Rebibbia Prison we feel that we’ve learnt to have the courage to change, to admit our own mistakes and to begin again.We feel God’s personal love and His immense Mercy.”
Loppiano – Retreat for Consecrated Women
In the Year of Mercy, Consecrated Women who belong to the Focolare Movement will hold a week of Spiritual Exercises at their Casa Emmaus Centre in the Focolare town of Loppiano, Italy. “It will be an opportunity for the women to deepen their own charisms in the light of the spirituality of unity,” explains Sister Antonia Moioli, “and in this context to experience the relationship that exists amongst the charisms. Brochure
Slotmob: A small idea that’s growing
It was the summer of 2013 when an idea came up among some teenagers from Rome of doing something to curb the proliferation of gambling in the city. It was becoming more and more common to see both old and young people glued to the slot machines that are found in many Italian bars. Despite the economic crisis, in recent years the supply and consumption of gambling in Italy has increased dramatically. Italians spend 85 billion a year on the more than 50,000 latest generation slot machines, and the latest estimates are that more than 800,000 people suffer from gambling addiction. We see how the gambling business is devastating our cities, depleting the fabric of society and creating isolation and loneliness. At the helm of this exponential growth of gambling is an economic vision in which the only thing that matters is profit for the multinationals with the consent from a state that also sees it as an opportunity for profit. In front of such a bleak scene the teenagers from Rome wondered what they could do . . . and from there came the idea of rewarding the barkeepers who have chosen not to make gambling available at their establishments. They went to breakfast at their bars en masse as a Slotmob. Initially they proposed doing it in Rome and Milan, but the simple and practical idea fascinated many Italians from north to south of the peninsula. There have been 120 Slotmobs in the past two and a half years, with the participation of over 10,000 people and a network of more than 200 associations. The project has created relationships with very diverse groups, created meeting spaces, awareness and mended the social bond that gambling had disintegrated. “In Rome we concentrated our efforts on an area known as the Italian Las Vegas,” Maria Chiara explains. “In a short time a network was formed with 7 local associations that deal with different aspects of gambling. A sincere relationship was created, not without the usual difficulties of working with one another. That’s how the Let’s Not Gamble Ourselves Project began and now involves several city schools. Talking to teenagers about the power of our choices and of how we can change unjust situations beginning from ourselves, is not in fact very easy. But it actually is important to build a more just world and to involve young people in the change process.” Maria Chiara continues: “The Slotmob experience is making us meet many people, many stories that show us that gambling is an open wound on our society. During one Slotmob a man that had helped us to organise some games with the young people took the microphone and told his own experience as a regular gambler. He said to us: ‘My life is made of bright spots and shadows, and what makes me gamble is the solitude. But today seeing all of you here I no longer feel alone. So I commit to stop gambling. If you see me in front of a slot machine, you’re authorised to reprimand me and remind me of this promise I make today’.” “When we look back,” Maria Chiara concludes, “we see that we’ve had unimagined results. Two laws were blocked that would have reduced the power of mayors in limiting gambling; we got a partial ban on television advertising, and increased media attention on the problem of gambling. We’re aware that we have a long road ahead of us, we’d like advertising for gambling to be completely banned and we want to re-open the discussion on whether gambling should be in the hands of multinationals. For this reason on May 7 we will be on more than 40 public squares across Italy restating our yes to a different economy and rewarding bars that have said no to gambling.”