{"id":329064,"date":"2017-04-05T02:20:47","date_gmt":"2017-04-05T00:20:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/youth-campaign-changing-our-own-square-metre-of-space\/"},"modified":"2024-05-16T15:06:54","modified_gmt":"2024-05-16T13:06:54","slug":"youth-campaign-changing-our-own-square-metre-of-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/youth-campaign-changing-our-own-square-metre-of-space\/","title":{"rendered":"Youth campaign: Changing our own square metre of space"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Congresso<\/a>Jaime recounts: <\/strong>\u201cLast year, I was given the opportunity to live for a whole year in one of the Focolare\u2019s little towns<\/a>, Mariapolis Lia, near Buenos Aires in Argentina<\/a>. It was a very powerful and immersive experience, precisely because the law of that town is the Gospel, beginning with Jesus\u2019s new commandment: \u2018Love one another as I have loved you.\u2019\u201d Upon his return to <\/strong>El Salvador<\/a>, however, <\/strong>Jaime found himself catapulted into a climate of danger and violence: even in broad daylight, the roads are never safe. It\u2019s even dangerous to take the bus or play football at the city park. \u201cThe situation had become so risky and dangerous,\u201d Jaime continues, that I thought of leaving the country and moving abroad. At first, everybody at home agreed, but when I thought about it some more, I sensed that God asked me to stay and be bring a little light into the environment I lived in, near to my Gen <\/a>friends who would have been alone in that situation if I left. What finally convinced me was some news about the young people from the Focolare<\/a> in the Middle East, many of whom stayed in their country in situations that were certainly far worse than mine. We talked about it at home and all decided to stay in El Salvador and carry on entrusting ourselves to God. When I told the Gen that I was staying, <\/strong>we got the idea of launching a campaign called: \u201cChange your own m2<\/sup> (square metre)\u201d with the idea that if we were all involved in changing our own m2,<\/sup> the whole country could change.\u201d \"Congresso<\/a>Tuong, a young <\/strong>Vietnamese<\/a> teacher of 13 children, confided: <\/strong>\u201cthey each remind me of Jesus in his abandonment on the cross. Why do I say it like that? Two of them were rejected by the public school after they repeated the same class three times. Another two are handicapped and so the regular school didn\u2019t accept them, and the school for the handicapped was too far away. The others have difficulty learning and their parents are separated and poor. All of them are experiencing a total absence of love, interest, sympathy, decorum; abandoned by their families and society.\u201d Tuong, what motivates you to go on teaching in such a class every day without any institutional assistance? It must not be easy…\u201d <\/strong>\u201cActually it isn\u2019t easy. One day I was trying to teach a student a certain letter in Vietnamese handwriting. I repeated it two or three times, but he wasn\u2019t getting it and wasn\u2019t able to pronounce it. I kept on trying, repeating it over and over again, but he couldn\u2019t follow. I was about to become angry; I wanted to forget about it and go to another child. Just then his eyes filled with tears and I felt his plea for help. Then I thought: \u201cIf Jesus were the one here with this boy who is not understanding, He would never walk away and say: \u2018I don\u2019t care about you!\u2019 So, I said: \u2018Let\u2019s try it again.\u2019 One day I wasn\u2019t feeling well. <\/strong>Then a girl said to the students: \u2018Be good! Be silent! The teacher doesn\u2019t feel well today!\u2019 A little boy of 5 years came up with a cup of water for me, telling me to rest a bit. Wow! Their little gestures made me so happy and confirmed for me that the Gospel art of loving that I tried to live was becoming their lifestyle. Every day they do their best to learn, to live in love and to laugh. We\u2019ve become a little family. Now they fill my days and my life has become colourful and filled with surprises.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Central America, Jaime and his friends propose paths of peace in the face of inner-city violence, while Vietnamese teacher, Tuong, teaches children the Gospel art of loving. Small signs of social change.<\/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":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-329064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-categorizzato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329064","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=329064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329064\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}