NY: Y4UW presents their project to UN-DESA

A delegation of six young people from Youth for a United World (one of our associate organizations) met with Mrs. Elisabeth Niland, officer for Social Affairs for the Focal Point on Youth Division for Social Policy Development (DESA) in order to lay out their upcoming projects: the big Genfest event and the United World Project.

Aided in their preparation of the meeting by our representative in New York, the New York branch of Y4UW firstly explained their network and the spirituality of the focolare Movement which is behind Y4UW and New Humanity to the UN Office which deals predominantly with youth activities.

They subsequently presented their “United World Project“ which, structured in a number of sub-projects aims: to build universal ties among the youth in order to perform concrete actions which may bring about unity (“United World Network”); to institute a permanent Observatory for fraternity to monitor, promote and conduct research in order to emphasise that universal brotherhood is indeed possible (“United World Watch“); to give a universal dimension to United World Week, a workshop which has been promoted by Y4UW all over the world since 1995, with the aim of creating a fraternal mentality between peoples and cultures (“United World Workshop“).

«Dr. Niland did not conceal her enthusiasm when learning of the project and was full of good advice.» reported the six young people who attended the meeting. She was equally interested when they presented Genfest 2012, a major event, in its tenth edition, which this year goes under the slogan “Let’s Bridge”, expressing its aim to build bridges of fraternity and dialogue all over the world. Its culmination will be in Budapest from 31st August to 2nd September, with the presence of 12,000 young people from all over the world.

Genfest got started in Loppiano, Tuscany, with over 2,500 youngsters from every part of Italy in attendance and with a live web link-up, a mere few hours after the meeting in New York with the DESA Officer and will conclude next year, on 1st May 2013.