Our Work in Numbers
Our Work in Numbers
An old story says that in an ancient medieval city there were three bricklayers at work, laying brick after brick, when a pilgrim approached the first of them and asked him what he was doing.
The man answered gruffly, “Can’t you see I’m laying these bricks to put up a wall?”
The pilgrim went up to the second bricklayer and asked him the same question, to which he responded, “I am building a cathedral.”
Upon reaching the third man, the pilgrim repeated the question. “I’m building a bridge to bring men closer to God,” was his answer.
On May 1st each year, the Central Geral do Dízimo – PRÓ-VIDA (General Center for the Tithe – PRÓ-VIDA), its affiliates in Brazil and the Centers for the Tithe of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile and Italy present their financial statements to all PRÓ-VIDA participants who attend the annual general meeting.
Each year, we celebrate an infinity of numbers, decimals, quantities and percentages as a real party. Many could wonder how a party can be made of something as prosaic as a series of financial statements. Many others could ask themselves why not celebrate the work of so many men and women represented in those numbers.
On the one hand, people giving their best to help hundreds of institutions that give refuge, appreciation and assistance to all kinds of needs around the world. On the other hand, thousands of friends united by the same ideal: the ideal of a fairer, nobler, and more generous world.
Those numbers also mean bricks, food and shelter, technology, vehicles and equipment. Material goods that help build schools, alleviate needs, or develop potential; goods that can help people see a future for themselves, the example letting them cherish hopes that there exists that possibility.
The possibility of a different world that, through his teachings and philosophy, Dr. Celso Charuri spread to anyone willing to hear it.
And it was he who said: “At first, man is within himself. Then he leaves himself, goes to his city; after his city he integrates with his country; then he leaves his country, goes to all the other countries; then he leaves his planet, goes to other planets, and one day has the Universal view, and one day integrates cosmically…”
To work… it is grammatically a verb, it is movement. Movement that knows itself to be part of a larger machinery.
And maybe, when that medieval pilgrim asks his question again, the size of what we are building will take on a different dimension.
42nd General Meeting of the Centers for the Tithe
In 2021, the CGD-PV (Central Geral do Dízimo – PRÓ-VIDA), its affiliates in Brazil and the Centers for the Tithe of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile and Italy made donations that benefited 221 charitable institutions in several countries. The financial statement was presented at the 42nd General Meeting of the CGD-PV, held on May 1st, 2022. The meeting took place at PRÓ-VIDA Headquarters in Sao Paulo (Brazil), and was transmitted to the other centers all over the world, with thousands of people watching. The annual financial statement is audited by Ernst & Young, one of the best companies in the world in the field.
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