Africa: Chocolate Can Be Sustainable
Deforestation, exploitation of labour, including minors and the use of pesticides. All too often chocolate has a bitter taste. Yet, a multiplicity of experiences is succeeding to make the cocoa supply chain sustainable. ‘The food of the gods’. This is the meaning of the Mayan expression ‘kakaw uhanal’ from which the term ‘cocoa’ derives. According […]
Persecuted Church: “Someday, God will dry our tears”
Death, kidnapping, extortion, and intimidation have become a daily reality for many priests and religions, particularly in Nigeria, Mexico and Haiti. Father John Mark Cheitnum was found dead after he was kidnapped with another priest, Donatus Cleopas, on the afternoon of July 15 as they were on their way to celebrate a mass in the […]
Reflection: The crushing burden of debt
There is one thing above others that humans can never escape and that is the burden of debt. Almost everyone, except the millionaires, have a burden of debt. They, too, can be in debt. Everyone seems to owe someone. There are different kinds of debt such as the “debt of honor” or in Filipino, “utang […]
Making a Common Cause with the Poor and with the Common Home
About thirty members of the Comboni Family (Lay, Secular, Religious, men and women, from Africa, America and Europe), met from July 27 to August 3, 2022, in Belém, capital of Pará, Brazil, on the occasion of the X Pan-Amazonian Social Forum (X FOSPA) and the Comboni Meeting on Integral Ecology. Here the Letter they sent […]
The Youth Corner: Youth is Gift and Grace
Youth is a time of discovery, but it is also a time in which young people sometimes refuse to grow out of their adolescent tendencies and other times accept to grow up into adulthood. Both stages are part and parcel of “being young.” This time – which is a big part of our life – […]
Oral Literature: Why Zebras have Striped Skins
Long ago before people started taking any other animal apart from the dog, it was said that donkeys could also be tamed. This rumour was told by one man who went to the bush to hunt. After killing the animal, he had hunted he found that it was very heavy for him to carry alone. […]
South Africa: Cave paintings and floral valleys
The Cederberg region of South Africa is a still unspoiled mountainous area, characterized by unique landscapes with unusual rock formations in which ancient cave paintings can be found. Just two hours from Cape Town, you can admire the Cederberg mountains, peaks of varying altitudes as high as 2000 meters. Made of sandstone, the rocks have […]
Peru: The Ayahuasca ritual: the gateway to the world of plants and natural medicine
The ancestral Andean Amazonian wisdom is transmitted through songs, mythological stories, and the narratives of the wise men and women, whose message is the importance of generating, preserving and caring for life in its entirety. The Ayahuasca ritual in the Peruvian Amazon and the preparation process of the aspiring Amazonian shaman. The name ayahuasca is […]
Brazil: The struggle of the Piquià community against the mining giants
Carajàs is considered the largest open cast iron mine in the world, in the heart of the Brazilian eastern Amazon. After more than twenty years of battles, the first families of Piquiá de Baixo, a suburb of Açailandia, in the state of Maranhã will be able to settle in a new territory, safe from toxic […]
The Youth Corner: To make sense of the world
In our first years in life, we are led to question everything around us. Far from pretending to know and understand everything, we look to adults as life partners who can help us make sense of the world, guiding us to see what is right and protecting us from harm. During this period – which […]
