By Matters of India Reporter
Manila, Philippines: This is how one of the 75-member Indian delegations that attended the Genfest, the international youth festival of the Focolare Movement in Manila, the Philippines, July 6-8, followed by post-Genfest July 9-13.
“The Indian delegation liked the program very much. It was a wonderful atmosphere for all, and a more united world is possible,” Chiara Matcovich, one of the Indian delegations, told Matters India.
More than 6,000 young people from 100 countries attended the Genfest and about 900 participated at the post-Genfest workshop program.
The July 6-8 event was the 11th edition of Genfest, the international youth festival of the worldwide Focolare Movement. Its theme was “Beyond All Borders.” The Genest 2018 was the first of its kind to be held in Asia and outside Europe.
It aimed at bringing individuals and peoples together so that they can contribute towards building fraternal relationships in the fields of economy, justice, politics, environment, intercultural and interreligious dialogue.
Founded in Italy in 1943 by the charismatic lay Catholic woman, Chiara Lubich, the Focolare Movement promotes the ideals of unity and universal brotherhood among all people and religions. Today, the movement is active in 194 countries including India.
Generally held every six years, the Genfest is organized by the Youth for a United World (Y4UW), Focolare’s youth wing. Since its inception in Italy in 1973, the Genfest has become an avenue for young people to show that a united world is possible.
At a time when migration increases and nationalisms gain ground, as a reaction to an exclusively economic globalization that ignores the diversities of individual cultures and religions, the Genfest has proposed to youth a change of attitude: do not stop at personal, social and political barriers but be ready to accept without fear or prejudice any sort of diversity.
In the coming years, therefore, the Focolare Youth for a United World will seek to generate a web of activities targeted at instilling a mentality and a practice of peace and solidarity in their own surroundings and in their countries.
On July 6, the delegates visited UNESCO headquarters in Manila to present Focolare’s projects and to offer these international organizations the commitment of so many young people, who will be ambassadors of fraternity in their own countries, and whose precise mission is to promote actions that go beyond cultural, social and political boundaries, that go “beyond all borders” as the Genfest title states.
The Genfest has been a feast and a commitment at the same time. The message to overcome borders has been passed on even though the artistic performances, as revealed by the two evening concerts that brought Asia to the rest of the world and vice versa.
Many visited Explo, a multimedia and interactive exhibition that offered a different version of the world’s history based on humanity’s steps towards peace and the centrality of personal commitment to building it. The young participants were even offered the opportunity to “dirty their hands” by choosing to take part in “Hands for Humanity”: twelve activities of solidarity, encounter and urban redevelopment organized in different parts of Manila.
Stories related by young people, who live the drama of migration and segregation, were the highlights of this eleventh edition of Genfest.
“Today, little is said about those restricted by limits in their everyday life, about those limited by walls, with a sense of powerlessness and a longing to be saved,” the organizers explained.
The stories related are of current significance, such as the one of Noé Herrera (Mexico) and Josef Capacio (USA). Both live very near to the border that separates their two countries. Noé has to cross Genfest by Focolare Movement.
Aziz is from Iraq but presently lives in France, said, “Have you ever stopped to think what it would mean if one day, all of a sudden, you are deprived of everything: family, home, dreams. What would you do?” he asked the other youth at the Genfest.
Egide and Jean Paul, one from Rwanda and the other from Burundi met during a very dramatic incident.
Jean Paul was at a bus stop when he was attacked and almost killed. Egide saved him and supported him for many months: an extraordinary gesture when one thinks of the wound that never healed because of the recent conflict between their two countries.
Maria Voce proposed three words that are also a life programme for all the youth who now return to their countries: love, start again and share. Love the peoples of other countries as you love your own people; start again without ever losing hope that another world is possible and share the personal and collective wealth, recourses and burdens. She concluded by challenging the young people to be men and women of unity, people who cherish the treasures of every culture, but who even know how to give them to others, and ultimately be global men and women.