Having originated from very old and diverse roots, the pedagogy of service-learning continues to spread on five continents under different names. It was given its present name in the USA and has developed systematically since 1968. Two years earlier, Chiara Lubich founded the Gen Movement, a youth-based branch of the Focolare Movement. The article explores her key speeches and messages that she addressed to young people. Lubich’s charisma inspired many practices and reflections on service-learning, laying the foundations for this pedagogy. They may be easier to understand if analysed through the prism of ideas discussed by Lubich in her studies, writings and works that inspired the Focolare Movement. The article presents the first reflections on the contemporary dialogue between Chiara Lubich’s charisma and the pedagogy of service-learning. The first part proposes a brief introduction to the idea of pedagogy of service-learning, while the second offers an analysis of some of its fundamental features present in the dialogue with the “charisma of unity”.