Students on a ... Boat

We return to sharing stories of European Project 2030 Youth Vision thanks to the local workshops that are being held [see Young Partners of the 2030 Agenda]. We asked Coach Nicoletta Vulpetti to tell us about the meeting that took place last week at the Liceo Scientifico Vito Volterra in Ciampino, in the Province of Rome.

The Vito Volterra High School in Ciampino has a special meaning for me. It was the first school at which I coached with the Fondazione Mondo Digitale. It was my baptism. It’s where it all started.

More than five years later, on Wednesday, November 29, I returned there for Project 2030 Youth Vision to hold a workshop promoting and stimulating youth activism for a sustainable future. As soon as I crossed the gate, I noticed benches everywhere: standard wooden ones and some new, artistic ones, shaped like folded books with the words of famous authors engraved on them.

I consider the benches a gesture of civility. It’s an invitation to sit down, stop, and have a solitary thought or a chat with someone. They allow the development of a community and the fact that they are at the entrance and along the paths of the school says a lot about the spirit that enlivens this place.

We meet in the library: girls and boys from a fifth-grade class with the most technological multimedia board I've ever seen and paper books all around.

We addressed the objectives of the 2030 Agenda, what future to imagine and build.

There is a boy, Valerio, who at a certain point tells me about his Italian essay.

“It didn't go very well, but I liked the metaphor I used: a group of men on a boat. The sea is rough. Some despair, others complain, but do nothing. There also is a small group that decides to row, and they agree to all move in the same direction. Then unfortunately the storm gets the better of it: the boat capsizes, and the men can't make it, even those who had started rowing. However, it doesn't matter; at least they tried."

Valerio perfectly summarizes the meaning of the challenges that await the new generation and ours. We cannot afford to stay on the side-lines.

As the young Balinese activists Isabella and Melati Wijsen said: “Don't let anyone tell you that you are too young. We're not telling you it will be easy. We're telling you it will be worth it."

We said goodbye with these words because yes, we don't know exactly where they will lead us, but the journey is always worth it.