Emergency
actions and Solidarity
|
The members of the Focolare
Movement are present and active in developing countries, and wherever there are hotbeds of
tension (intolerance, racism, violence…). With the support of the whole movement they
try to construct relationships and to give life to concrete expressions which underline
the value and dignity of every human being. Some examples:
 WHERE
MINORITIES ARE THREATENED, the members of the Movement spend all of their
energy working to build bridges and defeat violence.
* In Croatia, a group of the Movement in the city of Krizevci has opened
a school which welcomes 70 children from 3 to 6 years of age, who come from the city or
are the children of refugees from the war, and have differing ethnic and religious
backgrounds. After the traumas through which they had lived, the value of an experience of
living together in a climate of tolerance is inestimable. Sustained by Croatia's Minister
for Education, its pedagogical model has been presented to the founders of nursery schools
in the context of their training.
* In Romania, after the collapse of the dictatorship, the temptation to
seek revenge was great. A person of the Movement who had sought to defend a member of the
Securitate and his family, who were being seriously threatened, found himself in turn
being threatened some days later, because of his gesture. He responded to their threats,
"I always did my best to defend the weakest. I did it before… and I'm doing
it now too". This serene response was enough to resolve the situation.
SITUATIONS
OF CRISIS - The solidarity lived in long-term projects in developing
countries (see beneath), also responds to the necessities brought about by war or natural
calamities. In these situations, the members and the friends of the Movement commit
themselves on the ground, or from a distance (by sending emergency supply materials) to
bring assistance to the populations in difficulty. Examples in 1997 were the flooding in
Poland, and the earthquake in the area surrounding Assisi.
* Actions in favour of Bosnian women. Deprived of the right to a family
life because of the death of their husbands, and often subjected to violent attacks and
rape, many women found themselves alone and desperate. The families of the Movement
approached some of these, one by one, wherever they had taken refuge. They offered these
women, who were isolated from everyone, the possibility, for example, of coming to live in
the house next to theirs. One of these was able to say some months later, "You
have taken the hate from my heart and given me back my peace. I can no longer judge anyone".
There have been around 10,000 of these kinds of intervention, and there are still 150
women being helped.
* In Northern Ireland, fertile contacts have been established for many
years between young people and adults of the Movement and persons from both denominations
on the basis of trust and reciprocal respect. Since 1993 concerts for peace and round
tables have been organised, particularly in Belfast.
* In the Basque Country. As a response to the intrusion of an extreme
left-wing group into his university, which they sacked and covered in graffiti supporting
the armed group ETA, one young person of the Movement, and his colleagues of the students
union invited professors and students to a demonstration for peace. Challenging the
atmosphere of hate and insults, they gathered more than 3,000 people in the street, thus
demonstrating that the majority of them wished to construct society with non-violent
means.
IN
DEVELOPING COUNTRIES various projects of humanitarian character have been
instituted with the help of local inhabitants, who are the first protagonists of their own
development.
* In Fontem - Cameroon. Among the activities initiated in 1966: a
hospital (with over a hundred employees), a hydroelectric power station, a college, a
brick factory, a carpentry, a mechanic's workshop, a pressing machine for oil, etc. In the
space of a few years this village, which had been threatened by extinction through
sickness, has acquired the status of sub-prefecture. Together with the villages which are
connected to it, today it has about 80,000 inhabitants.
* Bukas Palad - Philippines. In the shanty towns surrounding Manila: a
social centre which includes schools for 1,000 children and young people, a clinic (5,000
patients), formation courses for adults, a carpentry shop. Committed volunteer workers:
217 full-time and 156 helpers. There are 18 programmes of assistance which reach 5,700
families. Every day meals are distributed to 600 people. The adoptions at a distance
involve 1,300 children.
* Magnificat - Brazil. In a very poor rural area of Amazonia: the
construction of wells, irrigation plants, of a social centre with schools and a clinic,
shops and habitations. 2,400 hectares of agricultural land have been placed in the use of
farmers in difficulty, to launch a project for joint administration in the form of
co-operatives. There are 12 communities with a total of 5,000 persons. The placing in
common of goods and time is vital to the life of the inhabitants of this village. The
State of Maranaõ has proposed that these projects be taken as models for other regions in
the implementation of agricultural reform.
* 65 projects for the assistance of disadvantaged children are brought
ahead by New Families in all continents, in part through help at a distance schemes. There
have been 9,300 adoptions. In Europe, there are activities currently underway in Moscow,
Tirana, and Bucharest, not to mention in Zagreb for the Bosnian populations who have taken
refuge there. This last project has been recognised by the Task Force of the European
Community (ECTF). |
|
