We are preparing to celebrate the birthday of the world and of the One who gave us life. It is an important time for regaining our inner house of the soul, for listening, for turning to the heaven that we hold within ourselves and trying to live in harmony and spiritually interpreting our earthly path.
In this short letter, dear friends of ABF, I would like to wish you all a peaceful Christmas, as well as extend my warmest regards. I would like a strong message of support and hope to reach you, so that together we can face the new year with optimism and renewed trust.
2021 will be a special year: the foundation – our large shared home – will turn ten, an additional reason to continue and enhance the philanthropic endeavor that brings us together with increasing enthusiasm.
It is also thanks to your generosity that ABF has been and continues to be constantly on the front line of the COVID-19 health emergency. Over the past few months, we have been providing increased support to Italy, without ever forgetting about the rest of the world.
As you are probably aware, on October 1 we inaugurated the new Camerino Music Academy and a new project is already underway that aims to foster inclusion and empowerment through children’s hospital schools. Since September, we have already delivered 5 “ABF Teach Buses”, digital libraries designed to enhance distance learning, to Gaslini Hospital in Genoa, to the ABF “E. De Amici” school in Muccia and the “G. Leopardi” school in Sarnano, to the “ZeroSei Center” in Lajatico, and to Salesi Hospital in Ancona. It will then be the turn of many other hospitals that are part of the network of the Italian Pediatric Hospitals Association.
2021 will present further challenges and we will do our utmost so that no one is left behind. Not least because the pandemic, in addition to its many victims, has also caused a dramatic increase in poverty.
Let us not forget what history teaches us: even after the darkest night the sun will rise again. I hope that soon, very soon, we will be able to go back to embracing one another again and be able to smile about this past year, which was so painful and unprecedented. We have a moral duty to cultivate optimism.
The darkest moments can intensify the glimmers of light that show us the right road to take and that separate values from disvalues. Every crisis can also be an opportunity. It depends on each and every one of us.
This December holiday that we are preparing to celebrate offers the salve of its Good News: it is the joyous metaphor of the miracle of life that is born and the love that – eternally – protects it.
My warmest wishes and a Merry Christmas to you all!
Andrea Bocelli