By
Adriana Gulotta

THE COUNTRY OF THE RAINBOW

The Country of the Rainbow movement is born from the Community of Sant'Egidio and benefits from its thirty-year experience with children, adolescents, and young people. The Country of the Rainbow represents the world of tomorrow, as we would like it to be. It is a proposal to build, together, a more just and humane world, a world with more solidarity for others and more respect for nature. We would like a world for everyone where everyone can live with respect for others and for nature.

1. Why is it called the "Country of the Rainbow"?

The story of Noah, which is shared by Jews, Christians, and Muslims, tells about a new covenant between God and people. This covenant, however, also involves animals, the earth, and all living beings. The sign of this covenant is the rainbow. It is the end of a world made up of fighting, war and violence and the beginning of a new world, marked by respect and brotherhood. Moreover, the rainbow, with its many different colors one beside another, is in itself a symbol. It shows that harmony and beauty rise from the respect of everyone's diversity.

2. Who is the Country of the Rainbow movement for?

It's for children, adolescents and young people and it proposes a program characterized by solidarity, peace, coexistence among different people, respect for others, and protection of the environment. It is a proposal born from experiences with disadvantaged children and adolescents, but offered to everyone. It is an educational and humane proposal for integration: of children, adolescents, and young people, of children from the North and from the poor South of the world, of Italians and foreigners. This is how children and adolescents from Gypsy and immigrant families can work together with young people from poor neighborhoods and their peers with more positive family, social, and life experiences to build together activities and ways of living that are a concrete alternative to the normal paths of segregation and discrimination. At the same time the movement is a response to the difficulties of growing up that are becoming more and more widespread in the diverse societies of the rich West and developing South.

3. Where has the movement spread?

The movement has spread to Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In every country, the movement, with its message of brotherhood and respect for diversity, is characterized by the ability to show that it is possible to overcome every ethnic (in Africa), religious (in Indonesia), or social (like in Europe) division.

4. What are the goals of the Country of the Rainbow movement?

The movement aims to teach children, adolescents and young people to respect and to live in solidarity with everyone, and to educate them about the problems of various peoples, the earth, and ecology. In addition it also wants to favor, through awareness and cooperation, the development of places that encourage peers friendships.

5. How many supporters does the movement have?

There are about 10,000 adherents to the movement, including children, adolescents, and young people from all over the world, and the number is growing rapidly.