Argentina, June 2005

                                                Special CICG-OIC Jérusalem 

To the ICCG member Guide Associations
To the correspondent Associations



Dear Friends,

The construction of peace has been always an essential matter for Guiding and Scouting. From our foundator’s point of view, the formation of people able to help in the creation of a more fraternal world is expressed in the law that invites us to be everybody’s friends and friends of the other guides, in the vocation for service and the call to leave a better planet than the one we have found, in the respect for cultures and religions, in the deeply humanizing vocation of his pedagogy.

As an educating movement our work is essential at this moment of history, forming builders of a culture of peace means to us helping every girl and every teenager to be an agent of reconciliation in her neighborhood and in her school, among her friends and mates, a person who thinks, feels and have peace in her mind and heart, in the relations with the others who she recognizes as herself.

Beyond tolerance, that is a first step, the movement impels us to know the richness of personal, social, religious and cultural diversity. The international friendship, the shared projects, the search of a fairer and more solidary reality have been always in the heart of Guiding.

  It is because of all these, that I want to invite all the member associations and correspondents to be present in a special way in the following General Assembly of the International Catholic Organizations Conference.

The ICCG participates actively in this Conference, at the moment, we are members of the Coordination Committee, two guide leaders take part in the working teams Solidary Economy and Education for Peace, and we interchange materials and ideas with many of the associations that compose it.

 

  The following OIC Conference will take place in Jerusalem, the topic 

TOWARDS A CULTURE OF PEACE IN THE CONTEXT OF THE INTER-RELIGIOUS DIALOGUEERS.

The presence of Catholic Laic International Organizations between the 18th and 22nd of November wants to be a modest contribution to the efforts made to get peace and a contribution to the dialogue among Christianity, Judaism and Islam.
On Sunday the 20th it will be hold a public ceremony to pray for peace.

                                                   

How can our guides be present in the member associations and correspondents?

                  - With words for peace :
 . Messages among groups, massages written in your own language which invite to build peace, which will be read or will be visible during the assembly.

                - With colors for peace:
 . Pictures or mini posters that will be placed in different places of the Assembly.

But especially with
               - gestures of peace
that the groups make in their communities and neighborhoods...

 Why

     don’t we invite to a moment of prays for peace in the church where the group works, or in the square or school ?

Why

    don’t we plan together with our friends who have another religion ? Why don’t we speak with other members of the Jewish or Islamic community of our neighborhood and create a common moment for interchange and pray ?

The project of a mural for peace painted by guides and parents; a tree or many trees planted as testimonies of peace that grows and we must take care of. A contest of poems, a song festival, a meditation workshop and pacific resolution of conflicts. And learn more about the Holy Land, learn about the holy places for the three religions of the Book, learn how the girls and boys from this land live…

...So many ways of thinking about peace, to make our heart move for peace, to stretch our hands and join them with a common pray, in a joined work...

We ask you all for a pray for the 20th of November, a lit candle that reduces the responsibility of every one for peace, in the Eucharisty of that Sunday knowing that we are joined through the Lord of Peace.

We will receive the messages and pictures until the 1st of November in the headquarter of our secretary*.

We would like to get information about those groups that have compromised with a gesture of peace, to make it known by the others, in a simple publication and let them know our thanks in a particular way.

We count on the interest and disposition of your association.

In Maria Guadalupe


                                                     

Silvia Staib de Chanes
World Executive ICCG
INTERNATIONAL CATHOLIC CONFERENCE OF GUIDING


                               

                                                                      Lettre paix (français)       Carta pax ( español )