{"id":341626,"date":"2013-01-13T14:30:46","date_gmt":"2013-01-13T13:30:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/giorgio-la-pira-international-centre\/"},"modified":"2024-06-06T12:08:21","modified_gmt":"2024-06-06T10:08:21","slug":"giorgio-la-pira-international-centre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/giorgio-la-pira-international-centre\/","title":{"rendered":"Giorgio La Pira International Centre"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/20130113-01.jpg\"><img alt=\"\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-77906\" style=\"margin-right: 10px;border: 0px\" src=\"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/20130113-01.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"314\" height=\"168\" \/><\/a>Basic support for young people from Asia, Middle East, Africa, South America and Eastern Europe is also offered by entities such as the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.centrointernazionalelapira.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Giorgio La Pira International Centre.<\/a> How is this commitment expressed in concrete terms?<\/p>\n<p>The Centre\u2019s director, <strong>Mauricio Certini<\/strong> recalls: \u201cIn March 1978, faced with the disorientation and loneliness of many foreign students, the Church in Florence wished to provide them a place where they would be welcome with respect to their different cultural or religious backgrounds; a place that would be open to dialogue, where they could help each other in overcoming the difficulties they were facing; a place where they could meet. As <strong>Pope<\/strong> <strong>John Paul II<\/strong> would later say, a place where they would find the thrust \u201ctoward a culturally richer society, more fraternal in its diversity.\u201d\u00a0 <strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Both the diocese and the city responded enthusiastically to the <strong>proposal of Cardinal Giovanni Benelli,<\/strong> who began by turning for help from Chiara Lubich and the Focolare Movement<strong>. <\/strong>Several Focolare families from Florence offered to host students in their homes, for example, and to care for them as their own children. These first volunteers at the Centre opened themselves to love with a universal heart like the heart of God, with the sensitivity of people in today\u2019s world, and the strength of the Gospel.\u201d<strong> <\/strong><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Over the years the centre has grown. Now,<strong> <\/strong>as <strong>Cardinal Giuseppe Betori, former president of the Italian Bishops Conference<\/strong> has said, it is \u201ca true home for the peoples.\u201d It has become a very modern network of persons, associations and institutions. This is where the first foreign student associations began that would later become the basis for the constitutions of the immigrant community, which in the future will soon be arising in Italy at Pisa, Sienna and Arezzo.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut the real meaning of the centre,\u201d Certini underscores, \u201cis the myriad of faces that we\u2019ve encountered and continue to encounter, of young people from nations that are often embroiled in conflict. It is these that have made <strong><em>La Pira<\/em> Centre an ongoing laboratory of peace education. <\/strong>These young people returning to their home countries \u2013 sometimes ruled by dictatorial regimes \u2013 can impose themselves as a real resource for democracy and aspire to belong to the future leadership class.\u201d <strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Source: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.toscanaoggi.it\/Toscana\/Immigrati-per-studio-in-8-mila-nelle-universita-della-Toscana\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u201cToscana Oggi\u201d<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 13th of January is the World Day of Migrants and Refugees. We offer some excerpts of an interview with the director of an International Centre that for 35 years has served foreign students in Florence, Italy. The centre has turned into to a veritable laboratory of peace education.<\/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-341626","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\/341626","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=341626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341626\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}