It’s cool enough to change the world

Riporto alcuni passi dello speech tenuto dal mio amico Antonio D. con Cony Manzano all’Università di Notre Dame, Indiana, USA, in data venerdì 27 luglio, in occasione della Graduation Ceremony del Phoenix Institute.

One of the feelings we share is the responsibility of not loosing everything that we received. We have a commitment to God, to the Phoenix Institute and to ourselves, to keep up with everything we learnt.
Indeed we learnt that the western culture is not only about Europe, but there is a common ground of this culture which we share with Palestine, Mexico, Colombia, America, Chile, etc.. but the most important thing we take from this three summers and the Phoenix Institute is the awareness that our country’s future depends on our decision to put in practice everything we absorbed not only in the classroom but in every conversation and of course in every prayer we did to our Lady at the Grotto.
After every class, every dialogue, we must bring things down to earth. The message we want to send to you is that we have a great commitment, to be witness of what the Institute transmitted to us. Overall, if we go back home and forget our promises, our will to change the world, we would have been lying to ourselves and to our friends we met here.
(…)
In the same way, we can assure you that after all we lived; we are not the same persons that began this course three years ago. Dear third year students: now our major task is to be an example to the ongoing phoenix institute students, to the one’s who we are further inviting, but most of all to those persons who will never have the opportunity to come to Notre Dame and live this experience.And this task is nothing compared to the nights spent in front of the computers in the library writing a paper. So there’s no excuse.
It is not easy, we are maybe not going to end with violence, war, corruption, unemployment, political hatred, and so many conflicts that characterize the world we were assigned to endure. But we think it is worth it to give it a try.
(…)
Thank you friends, each one of you whom with we had a personnel encounter, we have no doubt about meeting you again.

see u,
Giangiacomo