300 young people from 24 countries in state of conflict arrived in Italy thanks to the solidarity’s fund costituted by the Italian Commitee for the XV  World Youth Day and fed by the contributes of many  Italian youth that will partecipate to the GMG 2000.

The 300 young people will meet themselves tomorrow (Tuesday August, 1^st) in Verona, to pray, reflect about the themes of the World Day and celebrate  together. At 18:00 S.E. Mons Cesare Nosiglia,   president of the Italian Commitee for the XV World Youth Day, will officiate  the Holy Mass, officially giving the welcome to the young people who, eventually, depending on the belonging groups, will leave for six different itineraries in view of their arrival in Rome.

They are young people and adolescents that know war and privations. For a whole month they will be guests of the Italian dioceses and, from August 15 to 20, will be among the protagonists of the XV World Youth Day. “Try to make everything  possible to find again the way of reconciliation and forgivness”, is the invitation that John Paul II turned to the young people who are living the difficult experience of conflicts and who  the Holy Father desires to meet during the GMG in Rome.

Countries of provenance

The 300 young people arrive from every Continent and particularly from: Sudan, Uganda, Libia, Serbia, Kossovo,Timor-Est, Sierra Leone, Albania, Bosnia, Messico, Perù, Volombia, Guatemala, Angola, Bangladesh, India, Sri-Lanka, Croazia, Montenegro, Burundi, Rwanda, Algeria, Rep. of Congo, Guinea Bissau.

Programme

Young people will be divided in six groups and will spread themselves on six itineraries that will bring them to discover, from North to South, the italian peninsula. In the hosts dioceses they’ll live really intense moments, they’ll meet families, the authorities and a lot of contemporaries who have organized a joyful welcome. Trips, moments of pray, of cultural exchange, will be the common ingredients f or all the dioceses that had the opportunity to welcome these young.

The hosting dioceses

The local churches that will be visited from the young people of the countries in state of conflict are: Bergamo, Vicenza, Bologna,Verona, Cuneo, Padova, Brescia, Potenza, Trento, Cerignola, Rossano, Agrigento, Oppido Mamertina, Loreto, Teramo, Milano, Fano, Perugia and Rome. In the North as in the South the helpfullness was unanimous: “The purpose of this project is to make feel these young people the experience of the GMG 2000 - explains don Giuseppe Pellegrini, from the National Centre of Youthful Pastoral -, but also the meeting with the italian missionary realities”. The same from which every year start hundreds Clergymen who, often risking their life, go towards the  most faraway  and suffering populations.

For further informations it is possible to contact Don Paolo or Don Franco:

Tel. 045.8399615/617