{"id":328732,"date":"2016-11-16T11:14:27","date_gmt":"2016-11-16T10:14:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/educating-for-peace-a-commitment-and-a-choice\/"},"modified":"2024-05-16T15:05:42","modified_gmt":"2024-05-16T13:05:42","slug":"educating-for-peace-a-commitment-and-a-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/educating-for-peace-a-commitment-and-a-choice\/","title":{"rendered":"Educating for peace: a commitment and a choice"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"20161116-03<\/a>

Arooj Javed. Photo \u00a9 Fabio Bertagnin – CSC Audiovisivi<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cToday\u2019s young people aspire to become global citizens and we aspire to a united world,\u201d<\/em> concluded Arooj Javed<\/strong>, a young student in International Relations, a statement which sums up the objectives of New Humanity.<\/a><\/p>\n

This celebration of the 20th<\/sup> anniversary of the awarding of the Peace Education Prize to Chiara Lubich<\/a> was not a nostalgic revisiting of the event. The recent US elections, the tragedy of refugees, climatic change, rising inequality, the greed-dominated markets – all these dramatic happenings, evoked by the various speakers, fully justified the title chosen for the symposium: \u201cReinventing Peace\u201d<\/em>. It was to discover – beginning with the Focolare communitarian spirituality – <\/a>\u201cnew solutions\u201d to the \u201cagonizing face of new situations of war\u201d, as expressed by Jes\u00fas Mor\u00e1n<\/a>, the co-President of the Movement. Several catchphrases shed light on these reflections: intercultural laboratories, universal brotherhood, interreligious solidarity, the efforts of co-habitation and, above all, education in dialogue and peace.

\"20161116-02<\/a>

Enrico Letta. Photo \u00a9 Fabio Bertagnin – CSC Audiovisivi<\/p><\/div> \u201cWe need to dialogue as if in an orchestra, where each instrument is played in harmony with the others, thus creating a symphony,\u201d Msgr Francesco Follo<\/strong>, permanent observer of the Holy See to UNESCO<\/a>, said poetically. And Enrico Letta<\/strong>, President of the Jacques Delors Institute and former Prime Minister of Italy, commented: \u201cIn order to dialogue we must be aware that we are all minority groups on this earth. (…) If we make our own the fresh outlook and openness of young people, we can better understand that education for dialogue needs to be our fundamental mission.\u201d One of the proposals outlined in the final declaration was a very practical one: \u201cTo offer Member States training courses for teachers in the art of global living\u201d.

\"20161116-01<\/a>

Francesco Follo, permanent observer of the Holy See to UNESCO, Photo \u00a9 Fabio Bertagnin – CSC Audiovisivi<\/p><\/div> Pope Francis<\/strong> \u2013 who sent a message \u2013 recently spoke of a “piecemeal World War III”. This war \u201ccalls forth a response which is also \u2018piecemeal\u2019, made up of small steps and concrete actions. Each person has a role to play, something they\u2019re responsible for (…). Peace is not a promise; it is a commitment and a choice. (…)The invitation to all of us here and to those following this event all over the world, is to be armed with peace …\u201d, \u00a0declared Maria Voce<\/a>, President of the Focolare Movement in her message, which was read by Catherine Belzung, since she was absent for health reasons. During the symposium, several videos illustrated these small actions for peace which instill hope. Video presentations highlighted that<\/strong> \u201cpeace is not only a theory, or a dream, but a model\u201d: Christian and Muslim women of the Koz Kazak Association in Cairo (Egypt) who have built a beautiful \u201csisterly\u201d relationship with one another; the 40 Economy of Communion businesses in Africa; the presence From a Focolare community in Aleppo (Syria) which provides a space for sharing for this martyred population; the Santa Maria school in Recife (Brazil) where it\u2019s been possible to build strong relationships embracing the school community and families. These are all small stones in the mosaic dedicated to the promotion of a peace culture, which is the objective of UNESCO. <\/p>\n

Chantal Joly (Paris)<\/em><\/p>\n

Replay web streaming<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On November 15 in Paris, two days after the commemoration of the 2015 attacks, at the UNESCO headquarters, 500 people gathered to retrace the foundations of a new culture of peace inspired by Chiara Lubich.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"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":[893],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-328732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-focolare-worldwide-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328732","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\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328732\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}