Mantova becomes the world capital of children for an entire weekend, hosting the first edition of theINTERNATIONAL CHILDREN'S RIGHTS FESTIVAL, the only event on a global scale entirely dedicated to the issue of children's rights. Three fundamental topics touched upon during the event, conceived and organized by the Malagutti Onlus Foundation, one for each day of the review: it starts on Friday 26 June with Migration, Saturday 27 is the turn of Nutrition, and ends on Sunday 28 with Game .
Dozens of guests were invited to meet the public in the various parts of the city animated by the festival, starting with the sponsor of the initiative: Ellen Hidding, presenter of cult TV programs such as Mai dire Gol and Melaverde; as well as the author of a book of stories aimed at very young readers. Alongside her, during the three days, the Indian activist and environmentalist Vandana Shiva, the journalist Oliviero Beha; Walter Veltroni, who will present his latest film "Children know"; Geronimo Stilton, a fictional character who helped bring millions of kids around the world closer to reading.
25 JUNE, 19.00 pm – INAUGURATION
The International Children's Rights Festival officially opens with a big party in the heart of Mantua, in Piazza Mantegna, in the presence of the authorities, with the launch of 195 white balloons, as many as there are nations that have adhered to the UN Convention on the rights of Childhood and Adolescence; the delicacies of Sonia Balacchi – the first world champion of women's pastry – contribute to making the appointment even more inviting.
JUNE 26 – MIGRATION
The evolution of the geopolitical situation in the Mediterranean basin has reaffirmed how the theme of Migration is a priority to be addressed according to all its possible articulations. The International Children's Rights Festival chooses to tell the phenomenon from the point of view of childhood: bringing the story of those who have experienced the drama of uprooting and abandonment firsthand; but also that of those who work daily to rescue the thousands of migrants who try to reach Europe every week.
The focus on Friday 26 June, moderated by Oliviero Beha, addresses this specific point. Thanks to the testimonies of the frigate captain Pasquale Esposito, Commander of the Margottini ship of the Italian Navy, who patrols the coasts trying to provide assistance to the boats of migrants left adrift; by Alessandra Ballerini (legal consultant Terre des Hommes) and Anna Maria Colombani (Vice President of the Italian Red Cross); of the president of Ai.Bi. Diego Moretti and Michele Imperiali, of the scientific committee of ANFFAS Onlus.
The debate was enriched by the contributions of Miomir Rajcevic, president of that Media Education Center which in Belgrade has built a platform capable of involving children of different cultures, traditions and religious beliefs in a common path of integration in the name of creativity; by Valery Novoselsky, executive director of the Roma Virtual Network, a subject who works in the context of Roma and Sinti communities; and Said Islam Yacoub. In 2011, Italy was moved by his open letter to his mother – lost in Libya waiting to be boarded on a boat full of illegal immigrants – a message of affection and hope launched by a boy who was just fourteen at the time who became, due to the immediate hype media coverage of the story, an authentic symbol of the drama of child emigration.
Throughout the day, other voices and other points of view follow one another, other insights aimed at studying a very complex phenomenon. Thus we pass from the meeting with Marilina Intrieri, guarantor for childhood of a region – Calabria – involved in a particular way in the reception of immigrants, up to the one with Giovanni Giudice and Maria Volpe, representatives of the Police Headquarters of Agrigento, another area of Italy strongly affected by migratory flows. To close, in the evening, with the talk that introduces the screening of Children know: it is Walter Veltroni himself who discusses with the public the themes of his latest documentary, in which he interprets the most burning issues of our day precisely through pure vision and disenchanted with the little ones.
SOME DATA
Migration:
5.000: unaccompanied minors landed in Sicily alone between 2012 and 2013 (Save The Children source)
12.000: unaccompanied minors landed in Italy in the first nine months of 2014 (source Ministry of Labour)
JUNE 27 – NUTRITION
In the year of EXPO a reflection on the theme of correct nutrition is essential: correct because it is healthy and balanced; but also because it is sustainable, based on foods produced in compliance with the most inescapable ethical and moral principles. A convergence of virtuous behaviors that can be summed up in the position of Vandana Shiva: the Indian activist and environmentalist, vice president of Slow Food awarded the Right Livelihood Award (the "green" version of the Nobel Prize), is among the main guests on the second day of the International Children's Rights Festival.
Of the many gastronomic products there is one, particularly loved by the little ones, which can be chosen as a symbol of the contradictions of the food industry and of prevention: cocoa. Thanks to the participation of the Compagnia del Cioccolato, the festival audience can participate in tastings and meetings that reveal the many secrets of cocoa, its nutritional qualities and the various transformation processes that take it from the plant to the table. The Guinness Book of Records attempt to prepare the largest jar of cocoa cream in the world is expected in the context of the festival, for which the use of about a ton of chocolate is expected.
The focus of the day instead lives on the debate animated by the speeches of Emilio Franzoni, director of the Child Neuropsychiatry Unit of the University of Bologna; by Sergio Marelli, president of the Italian Food Sovereignty Committee; by Alessandra Fabbri, representative of the Italian Society of Human Nutrition; by Luca La Fauci, Nutritionist Biologist and Food Technologist and by Birgitta Olsson, of the VP International Youth Media Summit.
Maria Eleonora Cairoli, assistant to the former Inter player Ivan Cordoba in her role as president of the Fundación Colombia te quiere ver onlus, Italia por Colombia onlus, also brings her contribution. A subject committed to helping children in the poorest and most disadvantaged areas of Colombia.
SOME DATA
Nutrition:
170 million: children in the world whose development is compromised by malnutrition (Save The Children source)
150 million: children in the world at risk of diabetes and heart disease because they are overweight (source Unicef)
JUNE 28 – GAME
You have the right to play. This reads article 31 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child ratified by the UN in 1989: an apparently simple but far from trivial affirmation, which clashes dramatically with the scourge of child labor and with other terrible forms of exploitation and abuse . The International Children's Rights Festival dedicates its final day to play, seen as an engine of integration and sharing.
In Mantua table football is the protagonist: a traditional game that never fails to excite and involve anyone, even in the digital age. There are several tables set up in the city, at which the young participants of the festival can approach to challenge the guests and speakers of the review; but also Francesco Bonanno and Fabio Cassanelli: the first several times Paralympic world champion, the second 2015 Paralympic champion of the discipline. With Mantua designated seat for the first Paralympic youth Italian table football championship. Finally, we remain in the football field with Nicoletta Flutti, from the communication and partnership area of Inter Campus: the articulated project that sees the Nerazzurri club promoting sport as a vehicle for integration and social redemption.
The focus of the day is on the educational importance of play, with the debate involving Nicolò Barbiero, writer, screenwriter and contributor to the historic RAI broadcast L'Albero Azzurro; the writer Lorenza Cingoli, the founder of Lucca Games Beniamino Sidoti; the teacher of Toy History Vincenzo Capuano and Anna Oliverio Ferraris university teacher, psychotherapist and writer.
The members of the Italian section of Bikers Against Child Abuse, an association founded in 1995 in Utah with the aim of electing the figure of the motorcyclist as a real "knight" in defense of the rights of the little ones, also brought their testimony and contribution . A reality rooted in over fifty nations of the world and also active in Italy - the first nation in Europe - since 2010.
SOME DATA
Game:
300 thousand: young people under 14 hired as soldiers in various conflicts (UN source)
74 million: children in the world employed in dangerous forms of work (source International Labor Organization)
