Madrid, Spain - At our Peace Embassy in Madrid there were 42 participants for the first seminar of this year, on March 13. We planned the family education program on the theme of "Marriage Culture: Our Communication" with the hope that could benefit many individuals, couples, and families.
UPF-Spain Secretary General Armando Lozano gave the opening remarks, giving a general view of our international UPF work and objectives.
♦ The Madrid Coordinator of the Initiative, Mercedes González, gave a presentation about “Communication and the 10 Senses." [For the content in Spanish, click here.]
♦ Ambassador for Peace Ana Mª Reynés, PRH International Foundation Educator, gave a magnificent presentation about “Learning to Communicate in Marriage in a Constructive Manner.” She said:
Married life is a relation between two people who have decided to live and to share a common project. Two different people, unique in themselves, and educated in different places and circumstances. Our lives together have to be real and truthful. To understand each other, we have to invest a lot of efforts into deep and sincere communication. We have to share and speak about everything within reason in our hearts. To do that, we need to make time and invest effort to make space for our mutual relationship and understanding.
We need to learn “the art of communication.” Love will grow through practicing the art of communication.
Our feelings of love will grow and develop. Through this sharing, unity will become real. When we listen to our partner, we have to let him/her speak till the end of the sharing. We should not interrupt. To be a good listener is part of the art of communication. Times of deep sharing will be a solid ground for our marriage. Married life becomes very rich when we invest time shared our inner and outer experiences, ideas and feelings.
During her lecture, we did a written reflection of the reality of our relationship in terms of communication with our conjugal partner. In this way we saw where we are at.
♦ Psychotherapist Dr. Carmen Díaz Jiménez was appointed Ambassador for Peace. She and her husband, Mr. Luis Díaz, have a private clinic in Madrid, where they have many clients. They are helping many young people, adults, and families.
♦ Dr. Edwin and his wife Dora received a fidelity certificate for their more than 40 years of successful marriage, mutual respect and commitment.
They participated in the Marriage Holy Blessing and reaffirmation of their marriage vows this past January 30.
♦ We shared a toast for peace and ended the seminar with a snack.
The participants felt grateful for what they had received, and some, such as Dr. Luis Díaz, said: “Please let me know what we could do more to help with your NGO; thank you for the program.”
♦ Some of the UPF members invited their friends to come. Leonardo and Takiko-san invited two couples and two women. Among them was a Korean doctor, Lidia Han, who runs a private clinic with her husband, helping patients who have cancer.