Focolare Movement

India: a country that is a continent

Feb 5, 2012

Many religions, languages, cultures, languages... as India develops, so do its social problems. The Focolare is involved in interreligious dialogue, education and social projects that help the most disadvantaged.

The Indian subcontinent has more than a billion, 170 million inhabitants. Its population could soon exceed China’s. It is a rapidly developing country with one of the biggest economies in the world. At the same time there is tremendous illiteracy, poverty and malnutrition. Its enormous religious variety includes the 80% Hindu majority and a 2.3% Christian minority. It is understandable that among the Focolare dialogues in process in this land, the most developed should be in the interreligious field, especially with Hindus. The Focolare Movement has been in India since 1980. Today there are centres in Mumbai, Bangalore, Goa, New Delhi which promote various activities: Mariapolises, monthly meetings for adults, families, and young people. In various cities – Vasai, Pune, Panaji, Margao, Vasco, Trichy – there are groups actively following the Focolare spirit. Various small social projects are flourishing around the Focolare communities. These are engaged in educating children, improving conditions for women, supporting families in difficulty, with support also being given from people in other places. The best know are Ilanthalir’ (Tamil for tender shoots) in the South of India and in Mumbai ‘Udisha’ – the sun ray that announces the new dawn. Set up to ‘offer a practical response to the poverty around us’ they now look after about 2400 children and their families. There is a particular emphasis upon spreading the values of universal fraternity in the world of adolescents, reaching out to young people of all religions with various events, included ones of an international nature. The 2009 Supercongress – a meeting run by Youth for Unity – was held in Coimbatore, drawing together teenagers from across the planet. Many small but significant concrete ventures were also spoken of in the recent  New Humanity meeting in Mumbai (September 2011). Among the participants was a doctor from Goa who had set up the mobile Prabhu Prasad Clinic offering various medical services for people of all ages. Chiara Lubich visited India two times, especially for dialogue with her Hindu brothers and sisters. This was after she had got to know Dr Aram, the founder of Shanti Ashram, at the World Conference of Religions for Peace. In 2001 in Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu) she received the ‘Defender of Peace’ prize from the Shanti Ashram together with the Sarvodaya Movement. She came back in 2003 to the Mumbai’s Somaiya Vidyavihar College. She had been asked to speak about her particular vision of unity and universal fraternity, which she did. After that there have been numerous discussion meetings, conferences, exchange visits and symposia – the last being in December 2011. These were all occasions of dialogue, steps ahead in building relationships of real fraternity with the Hindu world, as witnessed, for instance, by Dr Vijaya Bhatia, a yoga teacher, who spoke at the Fourth Hindu-Chrisian Symposium on the theme: ‘Reading, interpreting and living the Scriptures to being about peace and universal brotherhood’. It is an ideal for life made concrete in the day to day, as in the case of one young woman from Mumbai who chose to give someone in greater need than her the money she had struggled to raise to pay a very high medical bill. It was a huge surprise when that very evening she received a phone call from the hospital. They had discovered an error in her favour and they owed her 300 rupees! It is the experience of living the Gospel that has an effect not only in the private and personal sphere, but also in the social. Statistics can be frightening, but striving the be ‘the change you would like to see in the world’, as Gandhi taught, the seeds of fraternity can continue to grow.

___

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Subscribe to Newsletter

Thought of the day

Related post

Searching for peace: a path in the hands of each of us

Searching for peace: a path in the hands of each of us

Eliminate every desire of power. In a world constantly torn apart by conflict and in following Pope Leo XIV’s invitation to build an “unarmed and disarming” peace, we want to share a reflection by Chiara Lubich that is extremely relevant for us today, taken from a 1981 Word of Life.

Education based on Peace

Education based on Peace

How can we become peacemakers in our everyday lives, right where we are? Anibelka Gómez, from the Dominican Republic, shares her story, showing how education can build human networks that sow beauty for the good of entire communities.

10 years after Laudato Si’ the ‘Amazonia project

10 years after Laudato Si’ the ‘Amazonia project

24 May marks 10 years since the publication of Pope Francis’ Encyclical “Laudato Si”. A moment of celebration, verification of what has been done and to take it up again and make it known to those who are still unaware of its content. Aware that ‘there can be no renewal of our relationship with nature without a renewal of humanity itself’ (LS, 118) we present the ‘Amazonia Project’, as told by two young Brazilians during the Genfest 2024 held in Aparecida, Brazil.