Under the same sky, thousands of kilometres apart, different hands and different languages shared the same smiles, the same simple gestures: a greeting, a thank you, an embrace that needs no words.
Togo, Malawi, Brazil and Poland: different places, a single thread that unites them.
- The challenge of body and culture — Imperatriz, Brazil
Giorgia Boz and Davide Da Rold (Belluno, Italy) lived an experience marked by physical and cultural strain, which gave way to the smiles offered to the young people they met — a sign that endures beyond the journey itself.
- Encountering a living faith — Datcha, Togo
Through the experience lived in Togo, Fr Marco Labate (Pavia, Italy) was able to open his eyes to a young and welcoming Church, made up of simple encounters and genuine fraternity.
- The gratitude born of service — Malawi
Benedetta Bordogna (Bellusco, Italy), Diletta Bordogna (Bellusco, Italy), Giorgia Valerio (Monza, Italy) and Sr Elizabeth Jara (Verona, Italy) shared a more intimate and personal account: service to others as a way of stepping outside one’s own “bubble”, the discovery that a small gesture can become a sign of something greater. It is the shift from asking “what have I given” to recognising how much one has received.
- The transformed return — Kraków, Poland
The group, led by Sr Antonella Rocca, of the Canossian Province of Italy, and Sr Izabel Ferreira, together with Sisters Carla Guterres, Maria João Ximenes, Maria Immaculata De Jesus, Maria Lopez and Olandina da Costa, of the Canossian European Delegation, accompanied the young women Elisa Pravettoni and Beatrice Riva from Monza, Ana Clara Azevedo from Portugal, and Erlanda Mejdani and Daniela Kolaj from Albania, in an experience whose focus was placed on “what comes after”: listening more, helping through small gestures, and carrying love, solidarity and memory into everyday life.
Every time we return, we return changed. The roads travelled this summer do not end where the journey ends: they continue in everyday gestures, in a more attentive gaze towards those close to us, in the desire not to stop here. And it is precisely from this desire to keep walking together that the experiences opening up in the coming months are born.
The journey that began this summer does not stop here: it is only just beginning. Here are some events already planned to keep walking together:
10 October — ApeRitorno in Verona An afternoon to come together, alongside Missio Giovani and other Religious Institutes and Associations, to share and revisit the experiences lived this summer: an opportunity to tell one’s story, to listen, and to let each person’s story weave together with those of others.
A dedicated path — Legnano For the youth group of the parishes of Legnano, a path designed specifically for them is taking shape: a journey of preparation ahead of joining the missionary experience in which they will take part in the summer of 2027.
Volunteering Day — Brescia The voices of those who have lived these journeys will become public testimony, sharing with a wider audience what it means to take a chance, to set out, and to return changed.
Every story told in these lines began the same way: with someone who decided to say yes. A yes that became a journey, an encounter, a service — and that now returns asking to be shared.
If something in this account has touched you, if you have recognised yourself, even for a moment, in one of these glances or in these words, know that there is a place for you too. The next step could be yours: an aperitivo in Verona, a path in Legnano, a testimony in Brescia, or simply the wish to find out more by writing to voica@fondazionecanossiana.org.
The journey continues. And it can continue with you too.
