Italian

General aim: promote a peace and non-violence culture and safeguard the environmental sustainability, as essential requirement to protect rights of children and in general human rights.

Specific target: make aware and consolidate public opinion about peace and non-violent polity of international, civil and social conflicts, paying attention to the involvement of children and to the relapses on subsistence farming; diffusion of information about a sustainable agriculture, in order to safeguard the environment seen as an instrument of social cohesion, both in a local and in an international sphere; increase the awareness about the links among cooperation, development and immigration, promoting a better knowledge of international cooperation and of problems due to human, social and economic disparity.

The project involves about 1,870 people, coming from different social groups and of different age, and in particular high school and university students. In order to involve all these different groups, different kinds of activities were promoted.

The project started in autumn 2009, with a concert and a photographic exhibition aimed to focus public’s attention on the Democratic Republic of Congo war and on its dramatic consequences on children, who are actively involved as soldiers.

At the same time were started awareness activities in schools, with paths dealing with the imbalance between the north and the south of the world, paying in particular attention on agricultural production as primary livelihood for population both, in the north and in the south.

In winter were organized 3 seminars about cooperation and peace, cooperation and environmental safeguard and cooperation and immigration.

In spring 2010 started a training course about international cooperation, following a path already tried and gauged by participants in the 3 previous years.

Course schedule:

1^st part: Development Cooperation in conflict’s contexts: principles and practices of international italian cooperation, of decentralized and of non-governmental cooperation; Democratic Republic of Congo (problem of child soldiers); Bosnia Herzegovina (the role of women and of agriculture in the reconstruction of social fabric); Palestinian Territories (the impact of Israeli-Palestinian conflict on agricultural resources).

2^nd part: peace and non-violent polity of conflicts, impact and practices of non-governmental cooperation during social and environmental conflicts.

3^rd part: sustainable agriculture in order to safeguard the environment.

4^th part: forced immigration, focussing on causes (wars and difficulties in the access to resources), on obstacles which characterize migration processes and impact on the arrival territories.

Another activity of the project is a cineforum (a series of movies), about conflicts and peace. As example is used Balkan’s war.

At the end of the course, during a congress, will be presented a research about the links between cooperation and the promotion of peace’s paths.

In order to improve the awareness and the spread of the themes the course deals with, it is under realization a “didactic kit” about cooperation and peace and it will be also activated a front office in the ACS’s headquarter about the same themes.

The project will be concluded with a travel to Bratunac, in Bosnia Herzegovina, where it is in progress an agricultural development project, and to the conflict’s memorial sites.

What has already been done

• - concert and photographic exhibition “Volti di Guerra” (“war’s faces”) about Democratic Republic of Congo and about ex-child soldiers

• - “development education”, a project of 6 hours for agricultural schools, about the impact of agriculture in the socio-economic imbalances between the north and the south of the world and the role agricultural products’ production and distribution may have in the environmental safeguard

• - 3 seminars about links between cooperation and peace, cooperation and migrations, cooperation and environmental safeguard

• - course about international cooperation

• - activation of a weekly front office in the documentation centre on cooperation and peace (in ACS headquarter)

• - cineforum about Balkan’s conflicts, and photographic exhibition about the importance of international cooperation in order to achieve a culture of peace

• - realization and publication of multimedia didactic materials

• - realization and publication of a research about peace and cooperation, deepening the “Do Not Harm” method

• - public congress about the role of international cooperation in environmental protection and in the prevention of conflicts

• - travel to Bratunac, Bosnia Herzegovina, visit to the headquarter, the plants and the members of the cooperative “Cooperativa Insieme”

Future steps:

Ended project