The University of San Marino dedicates a day to the “Italian Gandhi” who wanted to open the University of Peace on the Titan

Conferences, screenings and shows: a series of events dedicated to Danilo Dolci on 25 October, 100 years after his birth

A symbolic figure of non-violence, defined as the "Italian Gandhi", an educator and anti-mafia activist sensitive to the experiences of the most disadvantaged groups, Danilo Dolci was also a poet and sociologist who, from Sicily, where he was born 100 years ago, expressed a far-reaching message affirmed at a national level and reached as far as San Marino, where from the second half of the 80s he worked on a pedagogical manifesto with the aim of founding a University of Peace that never materialized, but is still current in its ideas and intentions.

The conviction and intensity with which he pursued the causes he believed in have inspired the world of cinema, theater and beyond: precisely for this reason, given the importance of his legacy, on Friday 25 October the University of the Republic of San Marino will organize a day in which the history, thoughts, values ​​and projects of a man who was also committed to school and society will be addressed, a beacon of change, protagonist of non-violent protests that involved, for example, a hunger strike that began in October 1952 after the death of a child from malnutrition with the aim of drawing the attention of Italian institutions to the urgency of some necessary interventions to avoid similar tragedies. Or a 'reverse strike' that in 1956 saw him arrested after joining some unemployed people working on an abandoned road.

"We remember him, who passed away in 1997, first of all for his concrete, real and lively ability to be indignant and act against the injustices that denied dignity to every human being," explains the coordinator of the event, Federica Zanetti, professor at the Universities of San Marino and Bologna. "It is logical to reflect on what a University of Peace in San Marino could do and represent today, as was his plan. This is an extremely urgent issue at a local, national and global level, where it is necessary to find a way to defend the right to dissent with forms of disobedience that are the basis of our democracies."

The event on October 25 will take place in two different areas, both located in the historic center of the Titano. From 14:20 p.m., in the Aula Magna of the university headquarters in contrada Omerelli 17, space will be given to Dolci's works through the voices, memories and testimonies of family, friends and others, with a section dedicated to his activities in San Marino. At 30:21 p.m., the screening of the documentary "Danilo Dolci - memoria e utopia", with the participation of director Alberto Castiglione. The event will then move to the Teatro Titano, where at 30:XNUMX p.m. "Digiunando davanti al mare" will be held, a show by Principio Attivo Teatro with Giuseppe Semeraro, dramaturgy by Francesco Niccolini, directed by Fabrizio Saccomanno.

The day, entitled "One Hundred Years of Danilo Dolci - for a Maieutics of Nonviolence", will be organized by the University of San Marino through the Laboratory of Education for Gender Identity and the Department of Human Sciences, the Cultural Institutes and the XXV Marzo Foundation, together with the training center "Borgo Danilo Dolci" of Trappeto, in the province of Palermo. It is part of a wider offer of official events and initiatives organized throughout the peninsula for the centenary of his birth.