Together to care: Genfest 2024 in Aparecida

10 February 2024 | Brazil, Genfest 2024, Y4UW

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By Cibele Lana- editorial team of Brazil Focolare

We are just over five months away from Genfest 2024, which in Aparecida, Brazil, will bring together thousands of young people from all over the world on the theme of care and fraternity.

There are three phases planned during which volunteering activities, artistic events, an exchange of experience, and human and social promotion actions will be held.

The Genfest 2024 is a big event promoted by the Focolare Movement that will be held in Brazil, in the city of Aparecida, in the coming month of July, with the participation of 6,000 youth from all over the world to work, reflect and plan together on the theme of “Together to Care”. The goal is to promote the protagonism of the youth in the realization of universal fraternity. To ensure a successful flow of the event, the program has been divided into three phases.

The first phase will be held from the 12th to the 18th of July, 2024, in Brazil and in several Latin American countries. During this phase, the youth will be invited to attend an intense volunteering experience, in small groups distributed in various social organizations. The goal is to reinforce a youthful leadership and encourage the creation of networks and alliances throughout Latin America. This first phase will be realized in collaboration with UNIRedes, a reality that unites over 50 organizations, initiatives and social movements in 12 Latin American and Caribbean countries, that promote transformative initiatives in various fields, such as art, culture, the environment, democratic governance, education, work.

The second phase will coincide with the main event held from the 19th to the 21st of July 2024 at Aparecida, which will be streamed online in over 120 countries and followed by hundreds of thousands of youth all over the world. It will be a big festival that will have the protagonist’s youth of different cultures, ethnicities and religions, committed to living “for a united world”.

Lastly, there will be the third phase, called “Travelling and Citizenship,”, that will always be held in Aparecida from the 21st to the 24th of July 2024: it will truly be a school of active citizenship, during which the youth will be formed in leadership and dialogue, developing concrete proposals related to integral ecology, peace, fraternity and the common good.

The goal is to get to know new lifestyles oriented towards a more just and sustainable society; reinforce and enlarge a global network of young leaders who are agents of change. In addition, the Genfest will promote initiatives in favor of peace and the common good, at local, regional and national levels, encouraging exchanges between Latin American cultures and traditions.