 Tuesday 21 May, the conference room of the former San Gallicano Hospital Complex hosted the Sheikh Mohammad Ali Hassan Hawad, and Dr. Alganesh Fessaha, of the NGO-GANDHI, a nongovernmental organization established in 2003 in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, on the initiative of doctors, university professors, and professionals in Africa with the aim of raising public awareness on the abandonment of children and adolescents and the discomfort of women.
The Sheikh Mohammad Ali Hassan Hawad is a young, influential Egyptian cleric who plays a humanitarian generous role thanks to which many Eritrean refugees caught between Sudan and the Sinai Peninsula were saved from the fate of death. His activity is dictated by religious principles of Islam and is well known throughout the region. In recent years, the international media have talked about him.
The Sheik managed to rescue many refugees snatching them from the traffic of human beings who have a free rein in the region, due to the ongoing instability. The refugees come mostly from the Horn of Africa, fleeing from poverty and oppressive regimes.
 The conference, organized by "People of Peace" of the Community of Sant'Egidio, which was attended by members of humanitarian organizations working for refugees, Eritrean citizens, intercultural mediators, and representatives of several embassies.
It was underlined the valuable humanitarian work being accomplished thanks to the synergy of volunteers from different religions and cultures: as Pape Francesco said on the eve of Pentecost, we want to work in "a culture of encounter, a culture of friendship, a culture where we meet brothers, where we can talk with those who do not think like us, with those of a different faith. "
The meeting has been marked by reciprocal understanding, despite the diversity of cultural and religious traditions and, above all, it has strengthened the prospect of a future more intense humanitarian collaboration for the promotion and protection of the rights of the weakest in a of the most sensitive areas in Africa and the world.
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