Step by step...

On this page dedicated to the sixty years of Sermig, we want to talk about an initiative that has involved our fraternity in different ways since 1987. It all starts in the simplest and most common way: walking. One step after another along the Italian roads. Hence, the name: 687 km of hope. In fact, these were the kilometers traveled in the first edition, starting from Oropa and arriving in Genoa, from the Piedmontese sanctuary of Mary to the monastery of the Poor Clares in the Ligurian capital. It was a journey for tomorrow, a preparation in the effort and joy of meeting young people, the elderly, the sick, bishops, prisoners, mayors and children, with the third millennium now around the corner. Ernesto Olivero explained it like this:

Dear friends, for a long time I had a desire in my heart that had turned into torment because I couldn't see a way to make it come true. I wanted to travel a long stretch of road on foot, bringing together, from one country to another, as many people as possible, to propose some signs of hope for our time: – giving land and work in the Third World to farmers who don't have it, so that they can earn a peaceful life with their own hard work through an "international cooperative"; – encourage the integration of new immigrants and their families in Italy, so that Italy begins to peacefully become a multiracial society; – help prisoners and ex-prisoners to enter the world of work without privileges, but also without discrimination that marks them for life. Going on foot for me, who have been trying to walk the streets of the Lord for some time, is an irreplaceable act of humility and, at the same time, a concrete gesture of sharing with those who struggle on the path of life and with those who have no voice. , to walk for tomorrow, asking everyone for solidarity, even if this solidarity asks us for sacrifices, a new commitment, a new thought, and even renouncing something of ours. In a world like ours, which has many worries and creates many, we risk forgetting the poorest of the poor, the most marginalized of the marginalized. In a world like ours, full of many possibilities, we must try to put them at the service of others.
It is true that it is governments who must think about providing social services, but it is we who must push them and concretely demonstrate our will in this direction. It is true that it is up to governments to avoid waste, unnecessary expenses and injustices in their own states, but we are the ones who have to concretely demonstrate that solidarity has no boundaries, that things can be changed to the advantage of the poor. I hope to walk for tomorrow and arrive full of the expectations of young people, of the voice of those who are unable to have a voice, of the anxieties of the people, but also rich in what the friends I have met have given me, in the search for answers to problems that seem impossible to solve. The baggage that I would like to share with those I meet is the desire to help those who have fallen and are paying dearly for their mistakes in prison; attention to the many foreigners who seek in Italy for themselves, for their families, what millions of Italian emigrants have sought and often found in America, Oceania, Asia and Africa... new means to combat poverty and marginalization in the world. To this end, Sermig is thinking of an international development cooperative*, which will become a sort of multinational alternative to those that too often do not think about the good of the people among whom they operate. It is with my heart in my hand that I ask everyone for collaboration so that walking is not a gesture without results, but becomes a stimulus to commitment and a path towards a more fraternal and friendly world.

* At the end of 1987 the Statute was approved and the "International Development Cooperative" was established with a notarial deed.


Ernesto Olivero
NP May 2024