27-29 August international Youth for Peace Meeting - Participants expected from 13 European countries, including a hundred from Ukraine - Assembly with Marco Impagliazzo on Wednesday 28
‘A Global Friendship for a Future of Peace’. A thousand young people are meeting in Berlin from 27 to 29 August to share this dream. They are high school and university students from 13 European countries from the Youth for Peace movement, linked to the Community of Sant'Egidio, which is committed every day on the outskirts to help children from difficult backgrounds, the homeless and the elderly, and organises solidarity holidays with refugees in camps in Greece and Cyprus during summer. It is a major European event for peace, which is all-important at a time marked by terrible wars such as in Gaza and Ukraine. One hundred young people are also expected from Ukraine, where Sant'Egidio continues to support the population with food distribution and medical supplies and has opened educational centres for children and young people, also thanks to the support of many internally displaced people who have joined the Community's humanitarian initiatives. These young Ukrainians come to the German capital from Kiev, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Kharkiv. Together with their peers from other European countries, they will express the hopes of their generation and discuss various topics - ecology, migration, poverty - in order to spread a culture of peace and solidarity in a city where a wall fell 35 years ago. An example of the power of democracy, dialogue and the pursuit for peaceful ways of change, but also a great sign of hope for the future.
On Wednesday 28 August, the young people will take part in a morning assembly with Marco Impagliazzo, President of the Community of Sant'Egidio. In the afternoon they will gather near the Brandenburg Gate for a commemoration at the memorial to the Sinti and Roma victims of National Socialism to reaffirm their commitment against all forms of violence and racism.
