“Called by name and as a people, we walk together careful to the last of history, to the bloodiest parts of creation"

Together with another volunteer, today we accompanied a man to do his job in the field: picking up cocoa pod, the fruit of the cocoa tree.
Once the pods were opened, the man going extracted the beans, which he then stored to be able to sow them, thus creating new cocoa seedlings, which will bear new fruit within three years.
This man is a humble peasant.
What he desires is simply to be free to work his land and live his life happily in his Country, Colombia.
This man has been repeatedly threatened with death.
An international presence is therefore necessary to guarantee him the security of not being killed during his work in the fields or his movements.
His life, like the life of the others men, women, old people and children who make up the "Comunidad de Paz" of San José de Apartadó, are threatened.

“We call on the Albanian Institutions to do everything possible to bring those responsible for Mario Majollari’s murder to justice and finally give his family an answer. There is no peace without justice”.

This is what Operazione Colomba, the Nonviolent Peace Corps of the Comunità Papa Giovanni XXIII Association, declares in a note with regard to the murder of Mario Majollari. According to Albanian journalistic sources, the only indicted, Kastriot Gjuzi, was acquitted by the court due to lack of evidence. In 2018 on April 10th, 28-year-old Mario Majollari, repatriated from Sweden where his application for international protection had been rejected, was killed in Tirana on alleged blood feud reasons, as his father had killed Ilir Gjuzi, Kastriot Gjuzi’s brother, in 2000. Now the questions are who killed Mario Majollari and why.

A few days ago Paola, Inès, Valerio and I went to Bebnine to visit a family that has just lost their baby.
One of our Syrian friends had asked us to visit them a few days before, in order to understand if they needed something, or even just to meet them. We had put the request in our to-do list of visits, thinking that sooner or later we would complete all the visits, despite our hundreds things to do and the frenzy of some days at the camp.

We get inside their house. The air is thick. The baby’s mother is constantly drying tears from her eyes. She is really beautiful, with freckles on her face. She is young. The baby’s father is down on his knees, staring at the floor. Their son was 7 months old and died in the hospital of Tripoli.

Allegra arrived to Albania like a meteor, a small burning flame that generates positive energy.
Her name is the perfect match between her tiny body and her flexible movements; she reminds me of those small sticks that people light up during New Year’s Eve, generating sparkles of joy.
Allegra is a lady with the face of a girl, she smiles gently and preserves endless supplies of love.
Her story is painful, but she knows how to tell it without rhetoric, by turning it into a meaningful and powerful tool.
Allegra enjoys the exchange while she meets others, she’s not afraid of being judged and makes her way in the jungle of rage and pain of the other people. And the others find shelter in her fruitful words.
Indeed Allegra does magic.

The memory of Luis Eduardo Guerra, Deiner, Bellanira, Alfonso, Sandra, Natalia, Santiago and Alejandro is alive.
On February 21st 2005, these 8 people were brutally slaughtered in the villages of Mulatos and Resbalosa (San José de Apartadò) by the army and the AUC paramilitaries.
In the main village of the Peace Community, Operazione Colomba volunteers share the days with the family of Luis Eduardo and Deiner.
The children, the sister, the grandchildren represent the blood family, but an entire community represents that family for which Luis gave his life: the family of nonviolent struggle, justice, respect and above all love.