Città di Torino

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Meeting Peace

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Comune > Olimpiadi 2006 > Meeting Peace > Young Words

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The iniziative

What

“Underwrite a truce”
As host of the 2006 Winter Olympics, the Youth Policy and International Cooperation and Peace department of the City of Torino invites youths from all over the world to participate in the “Young words happening”. The event will take place on 22nd – 24th September, 2005 and will consist of three days of dialogue on key issues of access to information, economic development, and cultural integration in the context of the Olympic Truce Torino 2006.
The purpose of the event, which will engage 2,000 Italian and foreign youth, is to experiment with a truce, a suspension of conflicts between people of opposing opinions, cultures, and faiths, allowing listening, dialogue and reflection to prevail. This will be a unique opportunity to listen to other people’s reasons.

When

The event will last three days, from the 22nd to the 24th of September, 2005, in which there will be an alternation between moments of dialogue and meetings with respected leaders on certain global issues.

The Contents

Some of the most respected international and Italian opinion leaders, and the young participants, will be able to confront each other while putting aside verbal aggression and ideological positions.
The three principle topics:

• State of the art global information networks, the risk of monopolization of these, the need for pluralism, old and new media, those of the Global North and South;
• Development and the struggle against poverty, international institutional policy and international corporate policy as opposed to the efforts of civil society, microcredit and the copyleft
• The melting pot and the reciprocal integration of diverse cultures, the confrontation of religious, ethnic, and national identities that persist both in the West and in the Global South
  

The method

The city will became a veritable arena of “participation”: the plenary assemblies will be held according to the “Town Meeting” method, a technique of participatory discussion being used for the first time in Italy. This method allows large groups to work together, connecting in real time via telecommunication many small group discussions.
The synthesis of the results –documents, interviews, video—will be available to all participants and to the city, as a communicative tool of the event.
The event will be characterized as a festive environment and the meeting of peoples and races, and it will be coupled with other gatherings and entertainment events.