The Dialogue with Creation Partners Week ( DCPW) was launched in Zamboanga City by the Silsilah Dialogue Movement with the partners on October 7 with the participation of five hundred guests, most of them young people of different schools in Zamboanga City. The theme of this first celebration was: ” Celebrating and Preserving our Common Home.” It was also the time to launch the logo of this celebration designed by the famous Muslim artist Rameer Tawasil ( see it in this Oasis News).
The concept and planning of the DCPW was finalized during the second national gathering of the partners of the World Interfaith Harmony Week (WIHW) last April in Zamboanga City and launched in Astoria Plaza, the same place where we have contacted the first celebration of this special week on October 7.
The partners of the DCPW are those groups and institutions who celebrate the WIHW and others who wish to join. Basically it is a new initiative where all are invited, especially the ” interfaith family”.
We are happy that this initiative launched in Zamboanga is now becoming a national one with the specific goal to invite those who are interested to take care of ” Mother Earth.”
For Silsilah the commitment will not end with a one week celebration. Dialogue with Creation, it is one of the pillars of the spirituality of life-in-dialogue, with the dialogue with God, the Self and Others. Because of this commitment of DIALOGUE WITH CREATION Silsilah along the years had done a lot to protect the environment, especially in Zamboanga City fighting against mining companies and protecting the watersheds of the city.
In the Past Silsilah has organized groups willing to join in the same advocacy. Initially Silsilah organized the “FRIENDS OF AYALA WATERSHED,” after Silsilah extended this advocacy to all the watersheds of Zamboanga forming the “Friends of Zamboanga Watersheds” and now Silsilah renamed the group calling it “DIALOGUE WITH CREATION PARTNERS MOVEMENT (DCPM).” This new Movement has a core group of experts and committed leaders who volunteered to be part of the core group to continue to sustain its interest and the advocacy.
With this spirit the core group of the DCPM has sent to the government of Zamboanga the request to give a special attention to the ten watersheds of Zamboanga and proposed to extend the area of forest of Zamboanga considering the increasing population and the scarcity of water. In this connection the core group has also suggested to the government some appropriate ways to control the water and to be distributed properly according to the needs of the city. Indeed, we are moving with determination in this critical time and we hope to sustain all these efforts with proper education and advocacy at all levels.
During the celebration of the DCPW in October 7, it was emphasized by the different guest speakers the importance to be together, Christians and Muslims, for the common good to protect the “Mother earth”. Some of the speakers have shared concrete quotations from the Christian and Islamic teachings. It was also mentioned that Dialogue with Creation is important as part of our spirituality as Christians and as Muslims.
While we are celebrating mother earth in the spirit of friendship between Christians and Muslims, we are disturbed by the news of the war in Gaza and Israel. Indeed this war and the many other disturbing news of wars around the world, calamities and conflicts remind us that we have to continue one mission of dialogue an peace with determination. Silsilah is moving toward the 40th anniversary and we feel that our mission has to continue with courage and determination together with those who believe in the same mission.
Silsilah continues to tell all that we have to promote dialogue and peace starting from ourselves. May our good story of the new initiative of the Dialogue with Creation Partners Week will inspire many to believe that if we work together for a common good we can serve the full humanity and together we will experience the joy to move together as part of the same family of God, discovering the joy to be part of the same ” Human Fraternity.”
Fr. Sebastiano D’Ambra, PIME
Founder, Silsilah Dialogue Movement