{"id":307526,"date":"2020-09-12T01:00:06","date_gmt":"2020-09-11T23:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/engaged-in-the-world\/"},"modified":"2024-05-15T20:41:21","modified_gmt":"2024-05-15T18:41:21","slug":"engaged-in-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/engaged-in-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Engaged in the world"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Emmanuel and Annick from the Focolare Movement dedicate their free time to the French Red Cross. Since the beginning of the health crisis caused by the coronavirus, operations have been launched throughout France to support people in need. This married couple has helped in two of them.<\/em>  The first operation \u00a0consisted in organising the delivery of medicines or food to people who were unable to do their own shopping. Emmanuel, an engineer at the University of Strasbourg, \u00a0worked almost full time as a volunteer coordinating the operation for the entire Bas-Rhin province (area around the city of Strasbourg). &#8220;Organising the teams and facilitating the flow of information,&#8221; he says, &#8220;was an immense logistical job. Even if sometimes I couldn&#8217;t get out of the house for three days, I didn&#8217;t feel alone. On the contrary I was \u00a0rather frustrated given that I was \u00a0working hard without hardly ever seeing the beneficiaries of my work&#8221;.  During that period, demand rocketed, especially for food. In fact, many social welfare associations had to close because most of their volunteers were forced to stay at home because of their age.  The other operation was launched from\u00a0 April 29<sup>th<\/sup> \u00a0to\u00a0 July 31<sup>st<\/sup> \u00a02020 by the European Parliament in Strasbourg. It decided \u00a0to reopen its kitchens to prepare 500 meals a day. The Prefecture was responsible for finding the beneficiaries of the meals at a local level and the French Red Cross for the delivery. Annick, who continued her work as a nurse also \u00a0volunteered.\u00a0 She says: &#8220;We saw people were happy to receive something. Although some were surprised and incredulous \u2013 imagining the background checking that was done \u00a0&#8211; people were anxious to have \u00a0those meals&#8221;.  &#8220;The institutions\u00a0 invested enormously at the heart of the crisis,&#8221; Emmanuel notes.  What does this commitment mean for Emmanuel and Annick? &#8220;I \u00a0am nourished by \u00a0the spirituality of the Focolare Movement, but\u00a0 our life is lived out \u00a0in society, it is in \u00a0giving (and giving of ourselves) concretely in the world,&#8221; answers Annick.  Emmanuel adds: &#8220;It is important not to remain in our corner, among Focolare people, but to act in the world. In addition, the seven principles of the Red Cross which are humanity, unity, universality, neutrality, independence, impartiality and voluntary service are very much in harmony with the &#8220;art of loving&#8221; and\u00a0 &#8220;The Golden Rule&#8221;.  &#8220;The crisis was a time of great tension and the quality of human relations between volunteers and beneficiaries in the field and in the organisation has been important. For example, I mediated between the volunteers when tensions arose. The Focolare&#8217;s charism of unity has been of great help to me in understanding situations, losing my idea, living the present moment well&#8221;, Emmanuel shares.  &#8220;This crisis has brought out the good or \u00a0the bad in us,&#8221; Annick notes. Her husband is pleased to see that it has generated new ideas for action, particularly in relation to the digital divide or relational poverty. &#8220;The great lesson of the pandemic for many is the awareness that we cannot live without each other,&#8221; she says. \u201d Interdependence was Chiara Lubich&#8217;s great battle at the end of her life &#8230; My optimism leads me to believe that more people will be involved in associations and develop their sense of volunteering&#8221;. <\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><em>\u00c9milie T\u00e9van\u00e9<\/em><\/p>\n<p> Source: Nouvelle Cit\u00e9, N\u00b0604, July-August 2020, p. 41.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Emmanuel and Annick from the Focolare Movement dedicate their free time to the French Red Cross. Since the beginning of the health crisis caused by the coronavirus, operations have been launched throughout France to support people in need. This married couple has helped in two of them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-307526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-categorizzato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307526\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}