The international meeting of the 1000 Youth for Peace, who came to the capital of the Netherlands from 15 European countries, including Ukraine, with a large delegation from Kiev, Kharkiv, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Cherson and Donetsk, ended on Sunday in Amsterdam. Three days of friendship, debate and reflection on different themes - ecology, migration, poverty - that gave voice to the hopes of this youth movement linked to the Community of Sant'Egidio and consolidated its commitment to spreading, every day, a culture of solidarity and inclusion at school, in universities and in the periphery, alongside children in difficulty, the homeless, the elderly and refugees.
"We are free to work for peace, to be happy and to help others. Let us dream together of a future without war and violence,' Marco Impagliazzo told the plenary assembly. "Let us build communities where everyone feels at home, a place where the fears of the present can be overcome. Fears can only be overcome by being with others. Anne Frank found a friend in the diary and the strength to resist in words. Etty Hillesum went to the Westerbork camp to help her brothers and sisters who were sorted from there to the death camps. Having ideals saved Anna and Etty's lives," remarked the president of Sant'Egidio, calling for the legacy of these two young Dutch Jews who experienced the horror of the Second World War and the Shoah to be taken up.
The meeting also included a lecture by Mario Giro on the difficult international situation and the war in Ukraine, a visit to the Anne Frank House and the National Holocaust Names Memorial, a demonstration for peace in the centre of Amsterdam and a festive Eucharistic liturgy presided over by Mgr Johannes Hendriks, Bishop of Haarlem-Amsterdam, in the presence of Mgr Giancarlo Dellagiovanna of the Apostolic Nunciature in the Netherlands. At the end of the meeting, the Youth for Peace agreed to meet next year in Padua and Venice for a new stage of Global Friendship.
