Focolare Movement

Córdoba has its Cube of Peace

Sep 7, 2017

The original “monument” was unveiled in the city’s Park of the Nations, in front of 750 children during a day of games and recreation. The “Cube” is an educational tool for teaching peace.

20170903-01The Park of the Nations in Córdoba, Argentina, is always filled with children and teenagers on the Día del Niño” (Day of the Child), which is celebrated on the third Sunday of August. The Park is the perfect place to hold games, tournaments and take walks. This year a festive crowd drew the attention of the passers-by, with the unveiling of a particularly meaningful monument: the Cube of Peace. There were games, obstacle courses, music and food just before the official unveiling in the presence of representatives from the Interreligious Commitee For Peace (COMIPAZ), members of the Armenian Church, the Jewish, Muslim and Evangelical communities. Fernanda Otero, Francisco Drab and Amelia Milagros López Loforte represented the Focolare community. The unveiling concluded with some words from Auxiliary Bishop Ricardo Seirutti who blessed the monument. It was to refrain from spinning the Cube. Each side displayed a sentence which, in spite of the rather playful and carefree atmosphere, were expected to be put into practice with seriousness and effort – and perhaps a bit of fatigue. The Cube proposes six actions that can be lived every day, each of them an expression of the Golden Rule,a version of which can be found in all religions: “Do to others what you would have them do to you:” Love everyone. Be the first to love. Love your enemy. Forgive. These are concrete gestures for a life that is counter current and courageous for the building of a more empathetic and supportive society.   The unveiling was not an isolated event, but the result of many months of interaction and field work, duing which the Focolare youth took the Cube to several quarters in the city, as an educational tool for teaching peace through play and theatre. In neighbourhoods on the peripheries of Ciudad Evita, San Roque, Cabildo, Müller, Argüello where people live amidst violence, with their civil rights often violated and with the children of the Sierra Dorada Foundation in San Marcos Sierras, they worked side by side with local communities and organisations who are desirous of becoming more aware of  local problems and taking direct action in favour of more incisive and effective social training. The project, sustained by the Focolare Movement, the organization for the defense of the rights of children and teenagers from the Province of Córdoba, the Living Peace Programme and the Interreligious Comittee for Peace, along with other organizations and public and private entities, aims to spread peace in all parts of society, beginning with a set of best practices for working with children, but valid for adults and in all environments. Similar activities are spreading in many other countries: Italy, Spain, Egypt, Hungary and Brazil where the now famous Cube has become the protagonist of a vast variety of educational projects and seminars. In Argentina, another Cube of Peace has been placed in a public area in Concepción, in the Province of Tucumán. Still in Córdoba, three days ealier, the Cube project was declared a cultural interest by the City Council. A small monument that continually comes to life.

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