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United World Week, 1-11 May 2014

April 28, 2014

Africa, the focal point of a worldwide link-up. On May 1, at 13.00hrs Italian time a worldwide link-up starting from Nairobi  will bring together youth from the five continents. This will mark the opening of United World Week 2014: “Bridging cultures”, a wide variety of initiatives focused on mutual sharing carried out by Youth for a United World in different places all over the world.

“Sharing with Africa”. This motto expresses the reciprocity that UWW 2014 would like to achieve through its focus on the African continent, an emblem of colours, cultures and challenges, thus exploring some of the pillars of the African cultures in mutual sharing and exchange of wealth.

Maria Voce, president of the Focolare Movement expressed gratitude to the young people for their “commitment” and “staunch courage” in “pursuing the goal of a United World, while immersed in today’s complex situations and in realities that differ”. It is “enormous work” she continued to say “but it is God’s dream, as Chiara Lubich liked to describe it”.

On May1 there will be the launching of the Atlas of Fraternity, the first document about 800 fragments of fraternity, brave initiatives propagated in cities to build bridges between individuals, groups and cultures, thus opening the road to dialogue and indicating new pathways to communities. Journeying the globe through this Atlas, one will see the fragments of fraternity that envelop the world. This is the first document about the United World Project issued after the Genfest 2012, that took place in Budapest.

Press release

Live from Kenya (May 1, 2014, 1 p.m. CET)

The Atlas of Fraternity (italian, from May 1, 2014)

Updated on April 28, 2014

SIF – Focolare Information Service

Igino Giordani and the courage of political coherence

April 18, 2014

It is a necessity today to revive a political culture and  give back the voice to personalities who wrote important pages of history, while one follows those who lived strong political ideals.

A talk about Igino Giordani, a pioneer of European unity and a politician who stuck to the values of good governance, will be held inRomeon the 34th anniversary of his death and on the eve of the European Parliament elections. The biography of Giordani, a twenty-year work carried out by Tommaso Sorgi, will be presented to the public on this occasion.

Igino Giordani (1894-1980) was a man who possessed profound freedom, even from the constraints of power. His life can still be taken as a witness to a political culture that values coherence, dialogue and peace.

Giordani was amongst the first youth who accompanied Don Luigi Sturzo in the affairs of the newborn Italian Popular Party. He faced the growth of the fascist regime with great determination; he aspired for the dream of a United Europe to happen soon, and did all he could for Jews hit by the Nazi persecution. Giordani was a collaborator of Alcide De Gasperi in setting up the Christian Democratic Party. He was a parliamentarian, a member of the Italian Constituent Assembly, a writer and a journalist. In 1948 he met Chiara Lubich and started to share the spirit of the Focolare Movement she had just founded. He became one of the Movement’s co-founders.

“A tweet from the past: In the beginning was the backbone…..”

Talk and discussion at Capranica College in Rome on Wednesday, April 30, 2014, at 16.00.

Prof. Rocco Pezzimenti, historian of Italian political thought (LumsaUniversity,Rome).

Hon. Rosa Russo Jervolino, who knew Giordani personally.

Prof. Alberto Lo Presti, director of the Igino Giordani Centre.

Authorative testimony will complete the whole picture of the multifaceted figure of Giordani and start the debate with parliamentarians present.

Biographical notes about Igino Giordani

Igino Giordani: The Politician

Invitation “In the beginning was the backbone…”

Video excerpts (in Italian) of Igino Giordani are available on request.

Updated on April 24, 2014

SIF – Focolare Information Service

Maria Voce in Brazil

March 22 – April 23, 2014

Maria Voce, the president of the Focolare Movement, together the co-president Giancarlo Faletti, are visiting Brazil. This journey starts from the metropolitan region of Recife, in the state of Pernambuco, with the presentation of the keys of Igarassu City, followed by the inauguration of the “Chiara Lubich Chair” at the Pontifical Catholic University of Recife.

Other regions to be visited are Fortaleza (Ceará), Belém (Pará) and Sao Paolo. Meetings with the Focolare Communities, with civil and religious authorities, and with people engaged in the political, economic and social fields are included in the programme.

This trip is also expected to be an opportunity to estimate the Movement’s contribution towards building “the common household” formed by the different sectors of the Brazilian society.

The following are some of the scheduled events:

• Inauguration of “the inter-institutional Chiara Lubich Chair in Fraternity and Humanism” at Pontifical Catholic University (UNICAP), Recife.

• Presentation of the keys of Iragassu City, in the metropolitan region of Recife.

• Dialogue with a group of twenty Brazilian Bishops who share the spirituality of the Focolare Movement. This will take place at Sao Paolo.

• Pilgrimage to Aparecida and meeting with Card. Damasceno Assis, president of CNBB.

• Meeting at Fortaleza with founders and leaders of Movements and Communities.

• Meeting at Sao Paulo with intrepreneurs involved in the Economy of Communion projects and with politicians from the “Moviment for Unity in Politics”

• Visit to social projects promoted by the Focolare movement in different regions of Brazil.

• Meeting in Sao Paolo with leaders of social organizations that originated from the spirituality of the Focolare Movement in Latin America and the Caribbean.

• Meetings with members of the Movement in different regions.

Brazil and the Focolare Movement

Talk by Maria Voce at UNICAP, Recife

Updated on March 26, 2014

SIF – Focolare Information Service

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