A summer of friendship and peace: the DREAM mission in Beira
For the third consecutive year, the Communities of Sant’Egidio from Rome Tuscolano and Palermo spent a summer of solidarity alongside the Community of Beira and the DREAM Program in Mozambique. Bonds of friendship and service were strengthened among the children of the escholinha and the youth of the city, with the conviction that peace is built day by day through simple, concrete, and shared gestures.
The Story of the Mission
The friendship and ties between the Communities of Rome Tuscolano, Palermo, and Beira continue to be renewed, deepened, and strengthened. After ongoing exchanges, contacts, and dialogue maintained at a distance, for the third consecutive year we came together in August to collaborate side by side. Once again, the mission called us to service at the DREAM center, and in particular within the escholinha and the nutritional center.
With the youngest children, to encourage socialization and schooling and to provide the first basics of writing through games, manual activities, and logic exercises, the focus was above all on: food, clothing, school supplies, and the environment. In addition, attention was dedicated to the importance of good personal hygiene practices (drinking clean water, washing hands, wearing shoes, brushing teeth), also by creating illustrated posters.
The guiding theme of the year will be peace, culminating in a final play. From now on, the children are already working—through painting and in synergy with the sewing school—on a large arco-íris, “the rainbow of peace.” To raise awareness on the importance of peaceful coexistence, respect, honesty, and fairness, activities centered—through play and learning—on words of hatred and love, and especially on the story of Floribert.
Thanks to a video and the teachers’ storytelling, the children came to know the story of this young martyr of our Community. The day ended with the making of a puzzle depicting the young Congolese, which each child then took home.
The service with the children could only end with a big celebration: among songs, colorful balloons, giant soap bubbles, games, laughter, hugs, emotions, and the inevitable gifts, we said, “See you next year.”
This year, the mission in Beira was enriched with the Youth Festival: a day dedicated to about 80 boys and girls from different backgrounds. It was a response to their thirst for friendship, fun, community, trust, exchange, and dialogue.
The Community of Beira remains in the hearts of the many friends who help during the summer of solidarity, also thanks to the program of long-distance adoptions that allows us to continue nurturing a relationship of loyalty and closeness with the youngest ones.