“My name is Sara Barboni, a former student at the Kant Lyceum and one of the students participating in the intercultural exchange project with a village in Fontem, Cameroon. I would like to briefly tell you about this project to emphasise the enormous progress that has been made.
The first contacts of my school with the GBHS (the linguistic lyceum) in Fontem date back to 1998 when teachers, administrators and students began to exchange letters as part of a project (“Adopt a Human Right. Schools meet Schools”) that initially called for a yearly scholarship competition for the students in Fontem.
In 2002, GBHS e Kant signed an official partnership protocol and a good number of associations and agencies collaborated on the project for cultural exchange. It is important to understand that exchange is not a one-way action; in fact, our African colleagues sent us many traditional cultural symbols from Cameroon that helped us understand more about them.
The project continued to expand towards other schools and soon became the “Digital Bridge” or the installation of a VSAT system to allow real-time intercultural exchanges. Finally, in February 2009, ten years after the project began, students and professors from various schools travelled to Cameroon to witness the results of the exchanges firsthand. This has all been made possible thanks to the help of many agencies and foundations, including the Lazio Region, ESA, the Fondazione Mondo Digitale and others, as well as the contributions of all those who believed in and collaborated on the project.
What I believe is important for me to say, today, is that notwithstanding the current state of crisis and difficulty experienced by schools and universities in Italy, this project has served as a reminder of the right to education, the right to freedom. Freedom to choose one’s own life and communicate with others. The freedom of minds without barriers, even if one lives in a minute village. It’s an honour and a great privilege to be able to help an African boy to graduate, to learn Italian or simply to reach his school by bicycle, just as it is a great honour to be in direct contact with such a beautiful culture that is so different from our own.
Over a year has elapsed since the trip to Cameroon, but remembering it is like reliving a strange dream. There are vivid and indelible memories in my mind. We were not just tourists in Africa. We live in a new way, we learned about a different approach to life. We came into contact with a profoundly different culture from our own, but the new approach I refer to is in our own lives. It is the curiosity and aperture of communication and communion with others that changes the way we perceive the world around us. In Africa, I learned what it meant to be with and for others, where the environment and conditions of life could make one easily far more egotistical.
So, I invite you to believe in this project and support it without hesitation. It is something that can continue to grow and enrich the lives of Italians and Africans, alike”.
Sara Barboni
