‘Global Friendship Peace Hope’. The words that will resound in Rome from 28 to 30 August, thanks to 1,200 young people, high school and university students from 12 European countries, with delegations from Africa, Latin America and Asia, who will be gathering in Rome for the international meeting of Youth for Peace.
The movement linked to the Community of Sant'Egidio supports children in need, the homeless and the elderly every day, it is engaged in sustainable solidarity projects with the Ecolab of Peace and, during the summer months, has promoted solidarity holidays with refugees in camps in Cyprus and Greece.
A major event for peace, much needed at a time marked by terrible and seemingly endless wars, such as in Gaza and Ukraine. And it is precisely from Ukraine - where Sant'Egidio continues to support the population with humanitarian distributions and has opened educational centres for children and adolescents, even thanks to the support of many refugees who have joined the Community - that 120 girls and boys from Kyiv, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Kharkiv will arrive in Rome.
Together with their peers from other European countries, they will give voice to the hopes of their generation and discuss diverse issues - ecology, migration and poverty - to spread a culture of peace and solidarity, inspired by the testimony of Blessed Floribert Bwana Chui, the young man from the Community of Sant'Egidio in Goma, Congo, who was martyred in 2007 for opposing an attempt to corrupt the population and was recently beatified.
On Thursday 28 and Friday 29 August, at the Nuvola congress centre in EUR, two assemblies will take place with the president of Sant'Egidio, Marco Impagliazzo, and its founder, Andrea Riccardi. On Friday 29, at 6.30 p.m., a flashmob for peace will take place at the Pantheon, with testimonies from young people from Gaza and Ukraine.
A particularly significant moment are set to be the passage through the Holy Door in St. Peter's Basilica on the morning of Saturday, 30 August, to commemorate the words of Pope Leo, who in Tor Vergata invited young people to be ‘witnesses of justice, peace and hope’ and to aspire to ‘great things’, but even said that ‘friendship can truly change the world. Friendship is a path to peace’.
After cultural visits to the city, offering ten different historical and artistic itineraries prepared by the Youth for Peace of Rome, the conference will conclude on the evening of Saturday 30 August with the Eucharistic liturgy at Santa Maria in Trastevere and a public party in the square.
