Run4Unity is one of the initiatives taking place during United World Week, one of the pillars of United World Project. Every year, thousands of people come together in a symbolic race and launch a worldwide appeal for peace.

Run4Unity celebrates its first 20 years this year. The largest and most uplifting race in the world, it embraces the entire planet with a wave of peace. From time zone to time zone, from Fiji to Hawaii, from Oceania to America, it tours the world, uniting peoples and cultures.

It is not a race of speed, but of messages full of hope. Each place is given the freedom to organise the event as they see fit, with the sports and activities that are most popular in their culture. Dancing, playing, making imaginative initiatives happen.

The True Spirit of Unity

The important thing is to share the desire for fraternity and harmony across a diverse world, to break down every kind of wall. These values are also at the heart of United World Project; in supporting this extraordinary annual event through United World Week – one of its pillars – it also supports its identity, the principles in which it believes and towards which it works.

United World Project is a look towards the other: not from above, not from below, but from the same level. It is walking to open doors, communicating, exchanging, feeling closer, and supporting each other. It is an effort to make the world a village that respects every resident and every family, a place inhabited by peace and reciprocity.

This is exactly what Run4Unity has been doing since 2005, ever since Chiara Lubich, founder of the Focolare movement, realised the potential of sport as a means of uniting young people from around the world.

On 9 October of that year, the first edition of Run4Unity started in Rome. Many young people – and not just young people – ran from Castel Sant’Angelo to Saint Peter’s Square, with Pope Benedict XVI blessing all the participants.

Meanwhile in Castel Gandolfo, a radio connected the five continents and the many countries (and cities) of the world. Sometimes in conflict with each other, that day, they committed to peace and unity with Run4Unity.

From Jerusalem to the pyramids of Egypt, from Hiroshima to Bangalore, one after the other, these cities, nations, and continents took turns in a relay race as long as the equator. Each represented by a colour of the rainbow, they all took part with open hearts, looking beyond religious, economic, and cultural differences.

The Global Impact of Run4Unity

Twenty years on, Run4Unity – which begins on 4 May 2025 – is still going strong. In a world marked by conflict and violence, by barriers and pain, it continues to carry its positive message in a festive atmosphere. Teenagers, young people, children, families, groups, schools, parishes, and people of all faiths and cultural traditions will shout their desire for a united world, with a smile on their face. The project is revered by United World Project, which – unsurprisingly – shares the word Unity/United with this invaluable race, and supports it wholeheartedly.

Luzi Lito and Federico Viara, members of the international secretariat of Teens for Unity – which organises Run4Unity every year – define the event: ‘It is one of the first events we have organised with a glocal aspect. Local and global, it draws on one of humankind’s most evident qualities: being scattered all around the world,’ Federico Viara explains. ‘This made it possible to imagine a wave crossing, enveloping, and embracing the world, enabling each of its corners to express itself in its own time and manner. An important message is this: everyone can run (or walk, or engage in various ways) for peace and unity.’

‘Sport’, Luzi Lito adds, ‘is a tool and a value common to all cultures. It unites people of different ages and from different parts of the world. This helps us to understand how important it is to strengthen our common values, which helps each person to develop and live for a United World.’

Why should Run4Unity keep going? Why should this legacy that has been built over the years not be lost, but be cherished?

‘Because this is a very challenging time for the whole world,’ Federico Viara continues, ‘and the commitment – no matter how small – of so many people to peace and unity is a way to spread hope. Not to mention young people’s fundamental commitment to growth, which will make them, we hope, protagonists of change when the world is in their hands.’

Luzi Lito concludes: ‘During Run4Unity there is a moment where everyone, wherever they are, prays for peace and connects with another country to pass the baton. This is important because doing something at a local level and then connecting with others makes us feel part of one entity, this one entity we call the world. So we feel we really are building a united world.’

Thanks to the efforts of Luzi Lito and Federico Viara, and a lot of people all over the world, the story of Run4Unity is now being told – just in time for its 20th anniversary – in an online docuseries directed by Annalisa Picardi. Watch the two episodes!

Article translated into English by Becca Webley