“La Grande Utopia”: children and young people protagonists of a project for peace

It is called “La Grande Utopia,” the pilot project of EMERGENCY and the Reggio Children Foundation - Loris Malaguzzi ETS Center that was implemented at the Gino Strada Comprehensive Institute in Sesto Fiorentino (FI).

It is a project that declines EMERGENCY's aspiration for the abolition of war with the philosophy and importance of childhood promoted by the Reggio Emilia approach: during the school year that has just ended, workshops and comparisons were carried out starting from daily life, narratives, graphic works created together with the preschool, primary and secondary schools.

Making visible the commitment of children, girls and boys for peace during the past school year will be the public posting in September in Sesto Fiorentino of posters made from their thoughts and graphic works. For teachers, adults and younger people from the next few days will also be hosted in two bookstores and a library in Sesto a bibliography with books on peace and against war and a selection of texts, as a suggestion for summer reading.

Experiences that can also be offered in other settings. A documentation of the work done will also be available, which can be a useful tool for the next school year for other schools, starting with the schools named after Gino Strada and for all interested schools in Italy.

The account of the journey "TLa Grande Utopia. A journey with children, young people and teachers to transform ideas and desires into a possible reality" will take place during the EMERGENCY Festival to be held Sept. 5-7 in Reggio Emilia.

“The experience has shown,” says EMERGENCY's Communications Director Simonetta Gola, “how from an early age we can talk about conflict and peace strategies, armed conflict or words, war or relationships, and we can discuss it with children and young people to understand how to disarm conflict for coexistence, building a culture of peace.”

“Children, bearers of 100 languages, are also great searchers of meaning in their relationships with Others, and it is here that they know how to experience the possibility of peace,” says Cristian Fabbi general director of the Reggio Children Foundation. "Together with them, in this pilot project with EMERGENCY and the Ic Gino Strada of Sesto Fiorentino, pedagogy, solidarity, education and research have come into play to affirm coexistence and peace.

“We joined the project with pleasure,” says Domenico Rodolfo Sarli school director IC Gino Strada of Sesto Fiorentino, "because we believe in a school as a promoter of change in the belief that each individual, as part of a group, is a potential generator of community transformation, and vice versa.

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