Meanwhile, conversations with institutions continue on the Next Generation YOU Manifesto launched at IYF 2021
Rome, 8 June 2021. A little over two months after the conclusion of the Italian Youth Forum in Parma, the location of the next Forum was officially announced during the latest General Assembly of the Italian Youth Association for UNESCO (AIGU): Sardinia. The themes of the fourth Italian Youth Forum (IYF) will be linked to intangible cultural heritage as defined in the 2003 UNESCO Convention.
It will take place in Cagliari in April of next year, and the aim will be to open a debate on human creativity and its renewed forms conveyed through new technologies. Among the main focuses of intangible heritage will be: the Mediterranean diet, canto a tenore singing, the festival of the Grandi Macchine a spalla (large shoulder-borne processional structures), the art of dry stone walling, and transhumance. In addition to scholars and prominent figures of national and international standing, poets, writers, sculptors and artists will be invited to give broad representation to the different forms of culture and art. For three days, the Sardinian capital will thus become the cultural capital of Italy.
During the most recent edition of the Italian Youth Forum – held entirely online on 27 March and attended by around 400 viewers – no fewer than 32 guests spoke, including the president of the Italian National Commission for UNESCO Franco Bernabè, the economist and president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences Stefano Zamagni, the orchestra conductor Beatrice Venezi, the teacher of Computer Science and entrepreneurship and winner of the Global Teacher Award Daniele Manni, the CNR researcher and collaborator of the Finlay Institute in Havana on the Covid-19 vaccine Fabrizio Chiodo, and the singer-songwriter Giovanni Truppi.
The third IYF also marked the official launch of the Next Generation You Manifesto. A document containing 23+12 proposals devised by young people for young people, concrete and easily implementable, including: compulsory food education, teaching for active citizenship, workshops for theoretical subjects and philosophy in technical institutes, digital school-leaving qualifications, a psychologist available to students, parents and teachers, food citizenship and sustainable products in school canteens, the introduction of sustainable materials and urban reconnection.
The proposals, concrete ideas to be included in the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), attracted the Government’s attention during the discussion with the Minister of Infrastructure and Sustainable Mobility Enrico Giovannini and the Minister for Youth Policies Fabiana Dadone. The dialogue with institutions continues: on 21 April and 21 May, AIGU also met the Under-Secretary for Education Barbara Floridia precisely to explore the Next Generation You Manifesto and collaboration on shared objectives.
These are the premises behind the fourth edition of the Italian Youth Forum in 2022, an event that aims to raise the bar even further by bringing together, alongside the world of culture, young people, institutions, and local, national and international organisations. The idea is to create an event that, in addition to gathering the roughly 200 AIGU members in Sardinia for three days of discussions and debates, will be open to anyone through a dedicated digital format for those unable to attend in person.