The World is indeed facing one of its strongest challenges in the past decade. The epidemic of Coronavirus that has shaken the core of the earth demonstrating its ability to go against a fundamental human right. There have been restrictions on movement both at the domestic and international levels leading to people staying indoors, restricting them from a fundamental part of human existence “relationship with others”. The detrimental havoc caused by the virus has left pain and sorrow in each place it visited, thereby creating memories of pain for the family, the community and the country.
I beseech you at this point to approach this message with an open mind. I believe that for every situation life brings to our doorstep there is a blessing, reason or a lesson to be learnt from it and the current situation the world finds itself is not spared as it also has brought to our notice some things that calls for both our personal and communal reflection.
In the heat of all this, I find myself far from home yet at home. In a small village in Tuscany Italy, with an organization known as Rondine Cittadella Della Pace. Italy is presently taking precautionary measures to respond to this unwanted visitor and one of the significant measures has been the restriction of contacts between people that have led to people staying at home with their families.
This Non-Governmental Organization known as Rondine Cittadella Della Pace, is built on 5 pillars with each having connections to the other. They are person, community, politics, relationship and Feast. It has a fortified objective of creatively transforming conflicts through dialogue. This is achieved by working on the five pillars it holds in high esteem. The word “Relationship” has been a core factor in the realization of dialogue and so, building a person in all ramification through value and implementation of a healthy relationship at all levels is key. It is one thing to establish a relationship but more important is maintaining it. In an average family today, the daily routine is that the parents leave for work in the morning while the children leave to their respective schools to return in the evening leaving everyone stressed out with either the work load at both places of work and school. They all spend the little time they can afford and return back to bed as soon as possible to get as much rest as they can to sustain sufficient energy for the demand at work the next day. This has over time affected the relationship established in the first community which has a way of affecting every other relationship around us as family relationships between parents and children and between siblings are the first relationships we form in our lives. Positive relationships with parents and siblings help a child grow mentally, emotionally, and physically, whereas negative family relationships can have detrimental effects both domestically and otherwise later in life. The advantages of a healthy relationship in the family spreads across the entire family. Some of its’s obvious advantages are the practice of both gratitude and forgiveness, becoming compassionate, having the ability to accept others. They form the fundamental bearing to establish and maintain every relationship outside the family relationship like between friends or colleagues.
The present situation we all find ourselves provides us with yet another opportunity within our immediate and first community to maintain and fortify the relationship we have between ourselves. We are presented with the opportunity to rethink the core values of family as well. In situations like this we do not remain with our colleagues at the office, we do not remain with our classmates at our schools but rather we return back to our first community. There is need to catch up with the details of things happening in the lives of people we spent most time of our lives but hardly pass quality time with due to the demand to meet up with the requirements of our society. A healthy relationship can be achieved mainly by spending quality family time together, resolving crises as a unit and demonstrating to our children love both by words and actions.
Do not let this opportunity be clouded by pain, rather we can creatively transform this challenge into a chance to amend every relationship with leakages around us so we can once again call ourselves a community.