An opportunity for help in the far corners of the world. Rediscovering the origin of a friendship that continues to nurture a tradition that is more alive than ever. This is the spirit of the AVSI Tents, an initiative promoted by the Volunteers for International Service Association, whose 2024/2025 campaign, entitled “Education is Hope. Support it with us,” was presented to local representatives on Wednesday, October 16, in Milan.

The launch event was attended by about 50 volunteers and more than 150 connected online to listen to the testimonies about projects that have been supported and speeches by AVSI Foundation President, Patrizia Savi, and Davide Prosperi, President of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation. From this, they drew inspiration to envision the form and content of the campaign’s various local initiatives, including public meetings and events ranging from charity dinners to fundraisers linked to non-competitive sports events, from performances to Alpine choirs at Christmas. All are united by the free dedication of many volunteers, as well as the invitation to get personally involved and donate.

“The Tents campaign is certainly an opportunity to raise funds,” Savi remarked, ”but above all, to tell and bear witness to our experience, who we are, where we come from, and the new judgment we bring to the world.” It is a conception of cooperation that is not the result of a “carefully crafted approach,” but is the “outcome of a history of more than 50 years that began with the encounter with Fr. Giussani.” And it is rooted in his idea of education that “unfolds within a personal relationship that guides a person in their relationship with reality in all its factors” and results in the “recognition of the dignity of the person as irreducible” in any circumstance, and in the “embracing the other as a good.” What “our cooperators” from over forty countries around the world testify to us, Savi explained, is that “people need material aid, resources, work, skills, but above all, they need someone to keep them company.”

Last year, thanks to the Tents campaign, AVSI raised almost 2 million euros that went to support projects, from Switzerland to Peru. The most ‘canonical’ example is distance support, which offers concrete help all over the world, respecting the family and cultural ties of the many young people helped by AVSI. Though it is not just about support. This year there are six projects. Rose Busingye's Meeting Point International - who spoke at the launch event to say hello - and the two schools, primary and high school, named after Don Giussani in Kampala, Uganda. These are places of education for hundreds of children and young people, like Priscilla Achan. As an orphan, she received support for her studies and is now the principal of Luigi Giussani Primary School, where she also teaches. This year, she moved world leaders by speaking at the G7 in Caserta, explaining that “education is walking together to discover the meaning of life.”



In Ecuador, the Fundación Sembrar supports Venezuelan refugees by offering them hospitality, integration, and training in a country where, according to its director, Stefania Famlonga, “crime and drug trafficking are the order of the day, and going to high school is a privilege for a few, and going to university is a dream.” There is also the Edimar Center in Cameroon, which helps young people; the Emmaus Association between Italy and Ukraine, which works to welcome war refugees; and the educational programs of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem in the Holy Land and Palestine. Finally, the Fada2i Center in Lebanon, amid a deep crisis, promotes educational activities in the hope that the war will not completely undermine reconstruction efforts.

Read also - Priscilla, Fr. Giussani and the G7

In so many of these scenarios, as well as in personal experiences, “pain or evil often seems to prevail,” and “disappointment and sadness cut off our legs, leaving us without hope,” Prosperi emphasized, after pointing out that the Tents campaign takes up the theme that has been the educational proposal of the entire movement of CL since the Fraternity’s Spiritual Exercises. What do we need? We need someone who ¬– like Rose, who convinced those woman with AIDS to take the medication they had previously been throwing away – knows how to affirm “the value of life,” “not merely with words, but first and foremost with gratuitous love,” like the love that the Ugandan nurse received and was able to offer, standing by their side. “Those women rediscovered the value of their lives because of a presence that testified to them the certainty that life is worth living, that there is a meaning, and that this meaning is good,” Prosperi concluded. Therein lies “the profound connection between education and hope.” In a “true encounter, capable of changing life.” Even today, through the Tents campaign. Because it is a “history that is not confined to the past” but is “a lived communion.” To be lived with actively.