On Sunday, October 26th, a small group from ICBIE Italia took a trip to Florence to check out the Festival della Creatività, which this year has chosen Brazil as its central theme. They couldn’t have made a better choice!!!
Visiting the numerous stands, we were able to confirm, once again, the country’s cultural and creative ferment; so many different forms of experssion: graphic art, fashion, photography, cinema, advertising, graffiti, etc. But also a desire for economic growth, with ufficial government representatives: the Ministry of Commerce, the Piauì State, Santa Catarina, Cearà, The Bank of Brazil, the Brazil Federal Government and last but not least, many cultural groups, associations, and NGOs working in Brazil.
One interesting and hopefully constructive contact involved an association, the Victoria Regia, that carries out a project for International Cooperation, with the objective of sustaining the realization of socio-cultural exchanges and projects, creating a network of relations, national and international, in the field of education for sustainable development. It offers schools, elementary, middle and high, a program of didactic support, using a pedagogy “for creative education and a life of value.” The idea is to foster the development of youths and adolescents, teaching a culture of rights, of dialogue, of the conservation of their own culture and their own environmental space, through education for universal solidarity and development, equal rights for men and women, and non-violence.
Objectives and activities that immediately seemed very close to those of the ICBIE in Salvador!
And so with the president Iramar (in the photo with Monica, Marcella and Consuela), we decided to meet as soon as possible in Rome, to organize an event together, and also to discuss the project “Right to a Future in Defense of Human Rights,” seeing as in 2008 we celebrate the 60th Anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights.
We returned to Rome recharged, full of energy and enthusiasm for the new projects and new spaces, even though we were a bit peeved about having just missed the feijoada that was served at the Brazilian restaurant at the fair that night. Oh well, next time!
Marcella
