Rome (Italy). From October 16 to 18, 2018, at the General Curia of the Jesuits, the Forum “Faith Action for Children on the Move” was held, a meeting of interreligious dialogue: Christians, Muslims, and Jews together for the protection of children. The International Forum is an important opportunity to get to know and analyze what is already being done in the world for them and to establish a shared action plan to guarantee greater protection for children.
Present were more than 80 international organizations, associations, religious institutions of different spiritual matrices, of 38 different countries, including UN agencies such as UNICEF, UNHCR who listened and shared experiences on the complex migration phenomenon.
Before their eyes was the reality of migrant children, unaccompanied minors, victims of violence, exclusion, often separated from their family, without the right to experience childhood, to play, to attend school, to access a path of normal formation and growth.
The central objective of the Forum was reciprocal listening and the search for common paths to reach a coordinated work, starting from the construction of an “Action Plan” and combating violence against migrant and refugee minors.
Each session of the Forum had an orientation theme in classroom interventions and group discussions:
- Spiritual support for minors and professionals who take care of them as a source of care and resilience.
- The role of faith in strengthening continuity in the protection of migrant and refugee children.
- The role of faith in building peace-based societies and combating xenophobia.
The days were marked by moments in the hall, where representatives of different institutions or religious confessions intervened, and then, the Assembly divided into three groups, listened to experiences of acceptance, protection, and integration of minors.
The participation of the invited young people and adults who told their migratory history was very significant and they let themselves be questioned by the participants who welcomed their life stories, dialoging with each other.
During these days, an “Action Plan” was drawn up, the result of the contribution of all the participants, which is still open to interventions, comments, and suggestions from the Institutions involved in the Forum.
The journey lived at the Forum and the sharing among the participants renewed in everyone the conviction that faith in dialogue with each other and in dialogue with civil and socio-political institutions reinforces the commitment of everyone in the collaboration and promotion of life, especially of migrant and refugee minors.
The sharing of good practices made the participants more aware that much of what is dreamed of by migrant and refugee children is already underway, that there is still more to do to tackle the emergencies of the migratory phenomenon, but above all to prevent it.
On the morning of October 18th, the educators Francesca Agus and Carla Lianas presented an experience of -prevention of xenophobia- involving the children of the Asilo Monumento ai Caduti, an FMA equivalent school located in Monserrato, Sardinia.
The challenge for the participants in the Forum is to open a new front in the context of interreligious dialogue: to explore new paths of unity, to find ourselves together, beyond differences and misunderstandings, for a great purpose that requires a transversal and unified approach .
At the conclusion of the Forum, the delegates of the different religious affiliations shared a prayer which all the participants sealed, placing their name on a poster, as a sign of their adherence to the commitment to defend the lives of migrant and refugee children, working together with the Civil and ecclesial institutions present on the world territory.
The Institute of the FMA was represented by Sr. Sarah Garcia, of the Youth Pastoral Department (Human Rights Office), who collaborated on the Italian Organizing Committee, and Sr. Maike Loes, a collaborator of the Mission Department.
