Matera hosts the first UNESCO youth forum, Feb. 23-25. Here's how to participate

The first youth forum dedicated toUNESCO’s major themes, such as education, innovation, outreach and sustainable development, will be held in Matera between Feb. 23 and 25. UNESCO Italian Youth Forum, this is the name of the event, is presented by the UNESCO Youth Committee, an association established in 2015 with the aim of supporting the activities of the Italian National Commission for UNESCO in various fields by promoting its projects that involve the active participation of young people and civil society in initiatives and events of national importance.

The initiative is among those promoted by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism (Mibact), within the official program of theEuropean Year of Heritage (which will be developed over thethroughout 2018) and coincides with the 25th anniversary of the inscription of the site “I sassi e il parco delle chiese rupestri” in Matera (which will also be European Capital of Culture in 2019) on the World Heritage List.Participating in the event will be young members between the ages of 18 and 35 who will exchange ideas and discuss for the purpose of enhancing the development of Italy’s cultural heritage.

Speakers from the world of Institutions, Culture, and the third sector include Marcello Pittella, President of the Basilicata Region, Vito De Filippo, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Education, Pier Luigi Sacco, Professor of Economics of Culture at theUniversityIULM in Milan; Adama Sanneh, Co Founder of the Moleskine Foundation; Basma El Husseiny, Director of Cultural Resources at Al-Mawred Al-Thaqafy (a nonprofit cultural organization supporting Arab artists, Cairo) and UNESCO expert in Cultural Governance and “Diversity of Cultural Expressions”; Ferdinand Richard, President of the Roberto Cimetta Fund (an association in support of the mobility culture and the arts in the Euro-Arab Region and the Mediterranean, Paris) and first coordinator of the Expert Group of the UNESCO International Fund for Cultural Diversity; Marco Bani, Head of the Technical Secretariat for theDigital Italy Agency and PhD in Politics, Human Rights and Sustainability at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna of Pisa; and Alex Giordano, Lecturer at the Department of Social Sciences,University Federico II of Naples, pioneer of digital culture and anthropologist of innovation, considered among the leading experts in social innovation, sharing economy and social and technological innovation applied to food and agriculture, founder of Ninjamarketing.

“2018 is a watershed year for our association,” says President Paolo Petrocelli. "Twenty-four months after the establishment of the Youth Committee, after having carried out numerous initiatives and projects throughout Italy and having obtained the prestigious recognition from the Director General of UNESCO for being one of the best youth best practices worldwide, we are about to embark on a new important phase of growth and development: we have provided ourselves with a new statute and have drawn up an even more ambitious and revolutionary multi-year work program. Having operated as the Youth Committee of the Italian National Commission, we are now ready to continue our journey with greater autonomy, setting ourselves new goals and objectives. The Youth Committee evolves to become the Italian Youth Association for UNESCO, the largest Italian youth organization for UNESCO, officially recognized by the General Secretariat in Paris. The Matera event is the first international forum promoted by UNESCO Giovani. We want to confront ourselves with more and more young Italians, Europeans, and young people from all continents. To do this, we have organized an event of extraordinary scope, which will bring together hundreds of young people to talk about heritage, rights, the future. Because even fromItaly we can make a contribution to the promotion of universal values and ideals. We are ready to talk to the World."

The event is open to the public, subject to registration by Friday, Feb. 16, at the link http://www.unescogiovani.it/call-for-participants/, which will allow participation in closed-numbered training workshops led by experts in the field on the leading themes, in which the policy documents for the current year will be developed.

Matera hosts the first UNESCO youth forum, Feb. 23-25. Here's how to participate

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