One arsenal, many arsenals: Arsenal of the Encounter

At the beginning of 2019, after the children and young people of the Arsenale della Piazza had handed over the honorary citizenship of Felicizia to President Mattarella in Turin in November 2018 - the imaginary (but at the same time real) city born at the Arsenale della Pace where over 200 children of 25 different nationalities demonstrate every day how happiness comes from friendship - we thought we would present this experience here at the Arsenale dell'Incontro. We asked the people who had shared the life and dream of this house with us for almost fifteen years to help us translate the "laws" that regulate Felicizia's life into Arabic: I cannot be happy if you are sad; Treat those close to you as you would like to be treated; We want to love each other; If you wish it with all your heart, dreams come true; Everyone, absolutely everyone, must be able to eat; Everyone's soul has the same color.

When we presented them to all the educators and therapists to propose that we too work on them together, we expected to have to explain, break down, clarify and contextualize them.
And instead the unanimous reaction was: «But these sentences express exactly the experience we live here! This is the Arsenale dell'Incontro... to talk about Felicizia they wrote about us!
Thinking these days about the 40 years of the Arsenal of Peace and how, albeit in apparently very different contexts, our homes are different floors of a single Arsenal, this episode came to mind.

When dialogue, acceptance, reciprocity, the good that you choose to want for yourself even when it is difficult or not obvious... they are not words but live in the concreteness of everyday life, they are embodied every day in the meeting with the person who before us, they ensure that our homes and the communities that live in them are mirrored in each other.
They ensure that they recognize each other as a single family, even when they have never seen each other in person and what separates them are seas, oceans, language, habits and customs... because what animates them is the same dream, the one that 40 years ago it found a home within the walls of the Turin Arsenal and from there it continues to spread and keep us united.
Every time we experience it, we thank the Lord for the gift of living here in Jordan, because it allows us to see first-hand that that dream is not linked to a physical place, but to a beating heart of the greatest Love that inhabits it .
And that Love has no boundaries. Every time we think he has them it's because we're putting them on him.

On Wednesday 21 June the end of year party took place at the Arsenale dell'Incontro, in which our children and young people shared the life of this house with hundreds of guests through music, songs and sketches, in the name of love, peace , generosity, mutual help, trust, constancy, collaboration, will (see images on this page). It was a great emotion to be able to meet for this moment for the first time after the pandemic. The theme of the meeting was We complete each other and that is what really happened once again in a moving way. In our desire to complete each other, the beauty of a community emerged which in its simplicity speaks and gives joy to everyone. The apostolic nuncio to Jordan, Msgr., participated together with families, volunteers and many friends. Giovanni Pietro Dal Toso, the auxiliary bishop for Jordan, Msgr. Jamal Aldibis, representatives of the Italian Embassy, the directors of AICS and WHO in Jordan, the mayor of Madaba and many other local authorities. The word that everyone, absolutely everyone, said (both verbally and in their eyes) was THANK YOU.

Arsenal of the Encounter
SPECIAL: An Arsenal that speaks
NP June / July 2023