Local Gen Fest: a proposal to bring #beyondallborders to your country

17 March 2018

All around the world, the eyes of the youth awaits for the most popular event of the year “GenFest” with the theme “Beyond all Borders”. Genfest is the gathering of young people from all over the world who believes that universal brotherhood is necessary to have peace. Begun in 1973, from an idea of Chiara Lubich (Foundress of Focolare Movement), the Genfest invites the youth to build bridges of fraternity and to contribute to break the barriers of indifference, prejudice and selfishness.  The 11th edition of Genfest  will held in Manila, Philippines.

The good news is that, within the internationality of  Youth for a United World (Y4UW), we launched the proposal of replying the idea of the Gen Fest Manila to go #beyondallborders in the countries. This is how so many groups started to prepare their “Local Gen Fest”. Y4UW will be participating in the main event that is going to be held in Philippines but at the same time they will be doing some activities in their own countries.

For example, The Local Genfest in Italy will be the Italian stage towards the World GenFest to be held in Manila. For this national event, the aim is to involve approximately 6,000 young people from all over Italy in the International Center of Loppiano on May 1, 2018 to bridge the borders of love and unity.

Brazil will also be having local Genfest at  Manaus on July 21st and 22nd, 2018. The youth from São Paulo’s and Rio de Janeiro’s will be together in Mariapolis Ginetta (International Center) in July 7, 8, 9, 2018 for their local event. And the one’s from João Pessoa and Aracaju are still working on ideas but the dates they choose are July 7-8, 2018.

In Albania the local Genfest will be on July 6,7,8, 2018 in Tirana. The program is in the state of ideas that are transforming into workshops on civil economics, legality, prejudices, relationships between generations and mass media. Also there will be some artistic moments of music and dance.Young people from Kosovo, Montenegro, Macedonia and Greece will also be invited for this event to go beyond all borders.

Likewise, In Nigeria is the local Genfest will held on August18, 2018.  In Portugal the local Genfest will be on May 1, 2018. They will be organizing some moments of action (like music, dances and experience sharing), trainings and workshops to promote peace.

Cuba will be having Genfest on August 10-12, 2018 at Habana. With experiences and artistic expression they want to echo this reality that already exists in the world to bring hope that universal brotherhood is possible!

It’s not just these countries but the youth in Dominican Republic will also be having Genfest on October 27-28, 2018 at Santo Domingo. In Croatia the local Genfest will start from 15th July 2018-22 July, 2018 at Krizevci.  In Tanzania the Genfest will be in September from 13-17, 2018 in the city called Singida. And in Guatemala the local Genfest will be in June with the local community.

Check out the map of our home page and get on board with all the Local GenFest around the world!

Let’s go beyond all borders!

By Reema Nasir

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