Palermo, May 23 2010 – Kerry Kennedy, honorary president of the Kennedy Foundation, daughter of Senator Robert Kennedy, human rights activist, will meet students from the South of Italy to talk about the Foundation’s activities for human rights and legality.
Kennedy will discuss with the kids on the possibility to create change in the world, starting from the issues of human rights and legality. Issues that are the core of the “Speak Truth To Power” educational booklet, that, through a memorandum of understanding with the Italian Ministry of Education, was distributed to 200.000 students in Italy, of whom about 50.000 only between Calabria and Sicily, since the beginning of the project in the 2008-2009 scholastic year.
Kerry Kennedy will attend in Catanzaro on May 21 the Gutenberg Project, a book fair organized by Gallupi High school in Catanzaro with other 40 Calabrian schools. For the Foundation, Calabria is a particularly special and important place, as the idea to distribute the booklet for free was born here, after Kennedy’s meeting with students from Locride, after the assassination of Francesco Fortugno, Vice President of the Calabria Region.
The Kennedy Foundation will then board the Legality Boat, travelling from Naples to Palermo, and will partecipate in the initiatives in Palermo on May 23, on the anniversary of the Capaci massace, when Judge Falcone, his wife and his escort were brutally blown up by mafia.
On the boat departing from Naples on May 22, there will be a delegation from RFK Europe that will accompany a delegation of students from all over Italy that this year participated in our human rights education project on human rights and legality. On board, a group of students from Livorno will stage “Voices From Beyond the Dark”, by Ariel Dorfman, from Kerry Kennedy’s book “Speak Truth To Power”.
Kerry Kennedy will be in Palermo to welcome the students, and will participate in the conference on May 23 at the Aula Bunker, the court room of Palermo’s Ucciardone prison, built for the huge mafia trial of the ‘80s.
“RFK Europe was created to carry forward, at a European level, Robert Kennedy’s unfinished work on social justice and peace”, said Kerry Kennedy. “We concentrate particularly on educating the next generations, because we believe this is the real challenge faced by who fights for human rights and legality. For this reason”, added Kennedy, “I am happy and honored to participate in initiatives in Catanzaro and Palermo: because speaking out and not forgetting are an important step to avoid apathy, one of the greatest threats to human rights today. What we’ve learned around the world is that the only way that real change is made is when small groups of determined people ban together and say: “I see something wrong and I want to right it!”. That’s what we need now in order to create real change for justice and peace in our world.”
