Identifying and elaborating the individual and collective actions to be implemented within one’s own community to impact the territory taking inspiration from the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals: the workshop The art of care in the name of the Third Paradise, in programme for tomorrow in the context of the Red Cross event Solferino 2019, will be centred on these practices. The participants – the Young Volunteers of the International Movement of the Red Cross and Red Crescent – will develop these activities working according to the demopractic method, with the coordination of Paolo Naldini, director of Cittadellarte, and Carla Orizondo, volunteering officer of the Italian Red Cross. The event, taking place from 2 to 7 pm, is part of the International Youth Meeting being held in Solferino from 17th to 23rd June. The participants in the workshop will sit at different work tables, discussing issues like sustainability, change, art and responsibility. To develop and identify the contents of this collective dialogue, they will specifically refer to the UNs 2030 Agenda and the 7 principles of the Red Cross, beside the association’s own 2030 strategy. “A series of intents that, as people and volunteers, we will strive to put into practice, – we read in the press release of the event – to become passionate and active spokespersons, builders of invisible but extremely strong bridges with the other and the others”. Five hours of work and active practices carried out in a single place, where different points of view will converge towards a common objective: sustainable change.
“The workshop – explained Paolo Naldini – aims at defining a charter of possible actions the participants will discuss and verify in terms of feasibility in the course of the twelve months following the meeting, each within their own organization of provenance. And that is where, in the day-to-day practice, the art of care will manifest itself, with its limits and successes, in each different and unique context, all united in the shared awareness that the world is governed by the behaviours we assume (or don’t) and the decisions we take (or don’t) in our own world on a daily basis. This is the new art, suitable to the third millennium, the era of the Third Paradise, an art we call the Art of Demopraxy, which can effectively accomplish the big dream of democracy, acting through the ordinary operations of thousands of human organizations”.
The director of Cittadellarte then talked about the sign-symbol (see cover image) sealing the collaboration and the communion of intents between Cittadellarte and the Italian Red Cross: “Michelangelo Pistoletto’s Third Paradise, elaborated integrating the Red Cross, can become the symbol of world peace. To me – argued Naldini – the vertical line in the left circle represents a standing person. The line is horizontal in the right circle: a fallen man. In the middle, the two have met and one supports the other. It is a stylised Pietà, the act of supporting”.
The demopractic workshop is only one of the events of the initiative: Solferino’s is a historical and traditional celebration for the Italian Red Cross, being this town in the province of Mantua the place where Henry Dunant found inspiration for the creation of the Red Cross. In addition, this year marks the centenary of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (FICR). Thousands of volunteers will therefore meet on the site of the 1859 battle, which originated what is now the biggest association of volunteers in the world. Solferino 2019 won’t be a celebratory occasion only, but an opportunity for the thousands of volunteers from National Societies from all over the world to grow, meet and learn.
