Filippo Rodriguez intervistato da Teletricolore.
The second edition of Internazionale Kids kicks off on Friday in Reggio Emilia, the first journalism festival for girls and boys of the magazine’s that every month brings the best of the international press to Italy for readers aged 7 to 13.
Presented today in Reggio Emilia in the Cloisters of San Pietro, the program of three days of eventsdedicated to the major issues of current affairs and information, at the center of this new edition is the interpretation of an increasingly complex reality and power that have the words in its definition. “We are very happy to return to Reggio Emilia to meet female readers. But above all to offer him a large outdoor space to get to know each other, have fun and discuss the topics that are most close to his heart" sais Martina Recchiuti, managing editor ofInternazionale Kids, who, together with Alberto Emiletti, directs the event. After the great success of last year, with seven thousand appearances and all the events full, the festival returns to Reggio Emilia between the Cloisters of San Pietro and the Civic Museums. "The Internazionale Kids festival has, among its merits, that of connecting the curiosity and the innate desire to understand the very young with the reality that surrounds us, thanks to the stimuli and the freshness of discovery - says the mayor of Reggio Emilia, Luca Vecchi - And given that discovering and interpreting reality, through journalistic techniques and knowledge, generates a future with different creativity and languages, the Internazionale Kids Festival in Reggio Emilia is in the right place. The collaboration between our city and the Internazionale Kids Festival, for the second year after the success of 2021, also enhances the distinctive skills of the community in emblematic places such as the Cloisters of San Pietro and the Palazzo dei Musei, increasing its attractiveness and enriches its cultural and educational heritage. The merit and our thanks go to those who worked on this second edition of a festival that promises to be fascinating and animated by the vivacity and joy of making discoveries and growing together."
A program for a weekend full of meetings and workshops designed to involve and train a young and curious audience, together with the editorial staff of Internazionale Kids, journalists and writers, photographers and illustrators, on major current events, from fake news to the environment , from war, to sport, to rights. The bond with a territory that has always been committed to promoting education, enhancing childhood and breaking down all barriers is also consolidated this year. "We hope that the Cloisters and the Palazzo dei Musei will be filled with many girls and boys from our city and from all over Italy, who will become the real protagonists of a busy program dedicated exclusively to them, who represent our future - has said Annalisa Rabitti, Councilor for Culture, Territorial Marketing, Equal Opportunities and City without Barriers of the Municipality of Reggio Emilia - Like last year, they will be treated by conscious citizens, involved from an intellectual, emotional, practical, visual and philosophical point of view. The topics will be the most disparate, we’ll talk about cities suitable for children, inclusiveness, sexuality, the right to vote...as always with the aim of developing a critical spirit and civil conscience. The culture we want for our city is also this: to offer boys and girls the opportunity to answer questions and curiosities, to stimulate new visions, new sensibilities and skills." And Davide Zanichelli, Director of the Palazzo Magnani Foundation added: "Also in this second edition, the Palazzo Magnani Foundation is particularly happy to actively collaborate in the realization of the Internazionale Kids festival. Bringing so many young people to places of art and allowing them to live actively by making them 'their own' for a weekend, we think it is a great opportunity to bring them closer to a participatory and 'living' vision of culture."
The festival
There will be 40 meetings, including mini-conferences, book presentations and screenings, and 10 workshopsduring which the central themes for a responsible and aware citizenship will be addressed, with a focus on the story of reality, its importance but also the pitfalls that often hides. Why is it important to tell girls and boys about the news? Which words are best to use? How to involve children on issues that generally concern adults, such as the right to vote or the design of urban spaces? There will be many events in which these great questions will be addressed and many guests who will try to give an answer together with the young participants.
The appointments
Among others, Donata Columbro, data expert journalist and head of the Dataninja school, will show the public the importance of data in the representation of reality. Current affairs will be at the center of a meeting with Andrea Pipino, an Internazionale journalist who will talk about what is happening in Ukraine. The environment will also be discussed: the scientific popularizer and founder of Geopop Andrea Moccia, in a meeting in collaboration with Iren, will highlight the importance of waste recycling for a sustainable future. Another great protagonist will be water, specifically the 10,000,000 liters present in the Iren Aqueduct that will be told with lights and music in the Blue Kids Night.
“We continue our partnership with Internazionale Kids in Reggio Emilia in the belief that it’s the ideal place to meet with the youngest and to focus their ideas and curiosities on current issues, in particular on those that see us directly involved as a company, from the circular economy to the ecological transition - declares Francesco Castellone, Director of Communications and External Relations of the Iren Group - For this reason, in addition to supporting the event, we will be present with some proposals coordinated by Eduiren: we will open the doors of one of our water plants for one evening, to show how water gets into the taps of our homes, and we will explore the theme of waste recycling with Andrea Moccia, promoter and animator of the Geopop channel. Our goal is to involve the younger generations and stimulate their awareness: in the days of the Internazionale Kids festival we will do it while having fun."
Instead, during a meeting for adults, the editorial staff of Internazionale Kids will discuss how to talk about war and peace with girls and boys together with Giacomo Petitti di Roreto of the NGO Reattiva and Carla Rinaldi of the Reggio Children Foundation. Also for adults, on Saturday there will be a round table in collaboration with Enel Cuore aimed at parents, educators and teachers with the Chief Executive Officer of Enel Cuore Filippo Rodriguez, with Tiziana Giordano from CESIE, with Fabrizio Minnella from Impresa sociale Con i Bambini and with Michelangelo Pecoraro of the Laudes association to reflect on how an innovative teaching model can help us reduce educational inequalities exacerbated by the pandemic. “In Italy too many boys and girls live in a disadvantaged condition in social and educational terms compared to their peers and do not have the tools to counter it - said Filippo Rodriguez, Managing Director of Enel Cuore - It is therefore necessary to offer them the opportunity to fill these inequalities through initiatives and programs that help enhance their potential, talents and skills. This is the goal of the Base Camp project - Educational and territorial facilities, the initiative supported by Enel Cuore and Impresa sociale Con i Bambini, created to combat child educational poverty and early school leaving through the creation of a base camp that is an open and inclusive point of reference from which every adolescent can start, with the support of a team of experts, to better face their own path. We will talk about it together with CESIE (Center for European Studies and Initiatives) and Laudes at the International Kids Festival, in which we will participate with satisfaction for the second year, to meet children and parents and make known the founding values and commitment of Enel Cuore."
The journalist Stefano Liberti will talk about the agri-food supply chain, on a journey around the world to find out how the food we eat arrives on our tables, while the entomologist and writer Gianumberto Accinelli, author of From animals we learn (Piemme 2022), will let us discover how much technology is inspired by the animal world. The world of sport will not be missing with Danielle Madam, Italian shot put champion, who will talk with the journalist Giorgia Mecca about sport, citizenship rights and ius soli. The Internazionale Kids editorial team will open its doors to young audiences, in meetings and workshops with professionals: Martina Recchiuti and Alberto Emiletti will talk about the work behind each issue of Internazionale Kids; Pierfrancesco Romano, copy editor of the monthly, will reveal how many people it takes to write an article and how to tell when it is ready; with Luisa Ciffolilli children will discover why writing recipes is a good training to learn to write anything well. International journalist Junko Terao will talk about her trip to North Korea, perhaps the most mysterious country in the world, where few foreigners can enter, while researcher Catherine Cornet will help us learn more about Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer building a car-free city in the desert.
We will reflect on rights with feminist activist Marie Moïse, talking about how a city where no one feels excluded could be, and with Fabrizio Acanfora, a writer expert in neuroatypicality and inclusiveness, exploring how we construct the reality around us through language.
Space for comics at Internazionale Kids. Appointment with the star of the humorous cartoons Pera Toons, and Maicol & Mirco and Cristina Portolano will also be at the festival. Susanna Mattiangeli and Rita Petruccioli will tell the stories and characters of Red Houses, the serial comic published every month on Internazionale Kids. Finally, the screenwriter Silvia Vecchini and the illustrator Sualzo with “Le parole possono tutto”, to get to know each other better through comics. There will be workshops such as “Istantanee di viaggio”, to learn how to read images, “L’officina delle lettere”, to recover the value of handwriting and “La manutenzione della bicicletta”, not to be caught unprepared in front of a flat tire.
At the Reggio Emilia festival also the photographic reportages of Internazionale Kids, the animated shorts of the Imaginaria di Conversano and Moscerine film festival of Rome, the videos on current events from the Internazionale website and the photographic reports from all over the world chosen by the Internazionale photo editor Mélissa Jollivet. Actuality, in fact, also passes through photography. Mohamed Keita will tell us about it through the experience of Studio Kene, the photography laboratory he founded in Bamako, Mali, to fight against stereotypes through images. A selection of the photographs taken during the workshop will be exhibited, thanks to a collaboration with the Pianoterra Foundation, at the Museum and accompanied by captions signed by a group of writers. “For the Pianoterra Foundation, culture, in its broadest and most comprehensive form possible, is a good cause. And it’s the most sensible form of investment, to improve the present but above all the future of the communities in which we live, especially when the recipients of this investment are boys and girls - Alessia Bulgari, president of the Pianoterra Foundation - For this reason, with an eye to the future, we are happy to accompany the information activity and the dissemination of free thought among the new generations that Internazionale carries out with the magazine for girls and boys and the Reggio Emilia festival. And it is even more significant for us that in this event the history and existential and artistic path of Mohamed Keita can find space, who arrived in Italy little more than a child and protagonist, together with his camera, of a journey that, we are sure, will remain in the hearts and minds of the boys and girls who meet him."
Save the Children has decided to support the festival, in consideration of its proximity to the topics covered and the attention to information and training of girls and boys that characterizes Internazionale Kids. “We are happy to have at our side a partner like Internazionale Kids, a magazine for girls, boys and teenagers that is an inexhaustible source of news from all over the world. A real tool through which the little ones get information on what is happening around them, developing a sensitivity through articles that talk about the environment, rights, citizenship, school, activism. All topics that contribute to the growth of a generation so that it feels more and more the protagonist of a company that will slowly help to build and, we hope, also to change for the better. Internazionale Kids is a very precious resource for the development of a critical conscience for all girls, boys and adolescents.” said Filippo Ungaro, Save the Children's Communications Director.
Pcema’s music (Permanent Center of Musical Activities) of Reggio Emilia will accompany the picnics on Saturday and Sunday, during which it’ll also be possible to have fun together with the Asmodee board games: “We enthusiastically participate in the Internazionale Kids event - said Ilaria Tosi, Asmodee marketing manager - and we can't wait to let readers and their families play and entertain in a context dear to us like that of Reggio Emilia, a city to which we are very attached both for the territorial aspect (our headquarters is in San Martino in Rio), for values, and for attention to childhood themes.” Healthy snacks guaranteed for all children. "As a historical partner of Internazionale in Ferrara, for the first time we will participate in the Internazionale Kids festival and we are very happy about it. In this context, we decided to talk about food that is good for you in a simple way: offering a fruit-based snack to the little participants of the Festival. In fact, the protagonists will be our fresh and organic apples available to children and carers, to remember that the break can be a moment in which to eat properly.” Said Chiara Marzaduri, Alce Nero Communications Manager.
The meeting with Cosmo will close the festival and will also offer his advice on how to build the perfect playlist.
The places of Internazionale Kids in Reggio Emilia
The Cloisters of San Pietro, a Renaissance monastic complex in which the architectural figure of Giulio Romano is recognized, are today a hub of cultural production and social innovation. Heritage of the Municipality of Reggio Emilia, they have been restored and redeveloped thanks to an intervention funded by the Municipality of Reggio Emilia and the Emilia-Romagna Region. An attractive center of international importance, they host, among other things, the European Photography festival, the performances of the National Dance Foundation - Aterballetto and the exhibitions organized by the Palazzo Magnani Foundation, in a city with a strong vocation for contemporary art and culture. With the birth of the Open Laboratory, the Cloisters of San Pietro also propose themselves as a hub of social innovation: a place for participation, discussion, open and widespread innovation in the field of personal and digital services.
The Palazzo dei Musei, a monumental building, can be imagined as a living being, in constant evolution, open to the community and to the contemporary world. Its valuable and intact historical collections created since the end of the eighteenth century (Palethnology, Archeology, Zoology, Ethnography, Botany, Geology) constitute a unique piece, which feeds the New Museum conceived and created by Italo Rota in a participatory path with the city and with the management and curators of the Collections. Here to preserve is to innovate.
Presenting itself as the Archive of Common Goods, the New Museum is a stimulating narrative immersion from Prehistory to Contemporaneity, through Archeology, History, Painting, Science, Technology, Landscape. A journey accompanied by the photographic and filmic image of the author, which culminates in the photography section dedicated to Luigi Ghirri and in that reserved for the authors of European Photography. The key word is: serendipity, or making happy and unexpected discoveries while looking for something else, as often happened in the Science of the twentieth century.
The Iren Water Plant in Reggio Emilia, commonly "the Aqueduct", is one of the fundamental nodes of the aqueduct system that serves the Municipality of Reggio Emilia and is one of the main Italian water plants. It has a storage capacity of 10,000,000 liters of drinking water (8,000,000 divided into three equal semi-underground tanks and 2,000,000 in the 55-meter high hanging tank, the highest point in the city). The hydroelectric plant earned the honorable mention of the Gold Medal for Italian Architecture at the 2003 Milan Triennale.
How to participate
All appointments are free, to participate you just need to book on EventBrite. Many of the events will be translated into Italian Sign Language (Lis) for an increasingly accessible festival. You can consult the program with all the details on http://intern.az/1EII
The Internazionale Kids festival in Reggio Emilia is promoted by Internazionale Kids, Internazionale, the Municipality of Reggio Emilia and the Palazzo Magnani Foundation. It is carried out thanks to the sponsor Iren and with the support of Enel Cuore onlus, the Pianoterra Foundation, Save the Children and Asmodee. With Alce Nero as technical sponsor. It is created in collaboration with the Reggio Children Foundation, Pause Atelier dei Sapori, Reggio Emilia Città Senza Barriere, Reggio Children srl, Re Mida, Open Laboratories, Cloisters of San Pietro and Reggio Emilia Civic Museums.