Andrea Riccardi's visit to Ivory Coast was an important opportunity for many meetings, besides those with the Communities of Sant'Egidio in Abidjan and other cities in the country, also with delegations from Togo, Benin, Mali and Guinea Conakry, as well as with other delegations from the region.
The most significant moment of these meetings was the large assembly in the Community House, which was attended by over 800 people: young people and adults committed to building a different, more humane and supportive future in the places where they live and work.
The theme of the meeting, “Avec Floribert pour la Résurrection de l'Afrique” (With Floribert for the Resurrection of Africa), focused on the figure of Floribert Bwana Chui, the young Congolese man of Sant'Egidio who gave his life to defend the poorest and was recently beatified. He is an example of resistance to corruption and the “dictatorship of money” at any cost, a role model for young Africans today and a prospect of personal salvation and that of an entire continent.
His Bible, usually kept in Rome, in the Memorial of the New Martyrs of the 20th and 21st Centuries, in San Bartolomeo all'Isola, was brought to Abidjan and, together with his icon, introduced into the liturgical celebration that concluded the assembly.
In societies dominated by extreme competitiveness, where the weakest are pushed to the margins of cities, the Communities of Sant'Egidio in Ivory Coast and other West African countries decided to continue their commitment to humanisation with even greater force, offering closeness but also concrete answers to people living on the streets, abandoned elderly people, the many young children through the Schools of Peace, and the many young people seeking a future for their lives.
