Mediation and conflict resolution are among the hot topics brought by the Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte to the attention of the 74th United Nations General Assembly, currently ongoing in New York. «We need to use in a more systematic way the peaceful tools for disputes resolution that we have, starting with mediation, and to involve all sectors of society in this effort, including women, and young people», says Conte. And the Rondine experience is the model to take as an example: «I like to remember an Italian initiative, conceived in a small hamlet in Tuscany – says the Premier – it is called Rondine. For over thirty years, hundreds of young people from countries in conflict have been invited to live together, to experience a daily dialogue, becoming in fact, day after day, “messengers” of peace».

The endorsement of the Prime Minister has a great impact and reconfirms the support achieved on the occasion of the visit last May 17th to the Citadel of Peace in Arezzo, when Conte made the formal commitment to sign the Leaders for Peace campaign, announcing the move of a symbolic amount from the Defense budget in order to form Peace leaders.

«We welcome with joy and great sense of responsibility the fact that Conte brought the experience of Rondine to the attention of the United Nations, as a model of new humanism – comments the President of Rondine, Franco Vaccari – recalling that “behind this formula, behind these numbers, there are relations between human beings”, and pointing out the need to “give these relationships the meaning of a confrontation between women and men”, because only in this way “our systems of government will preserve a human face and will not fade in authoritarian systems” – continues Vaccari, quoting Conte. – This is the mission of Rondine, which offers itself, today more than ever, as a model which puts a leadership regenerated by the strength of the relationship at the center of world governance».

«As Greta Thunberg has taught us these days – continues President Vaccari – today the young people are those who bring the emergencies of the planet to the attention of the heads of state. War, armed conflicts, can no longer be secondary themes in the states’ agendas. Today, the voice of Rondine’s youth arises, the voice of those two hundred young people grown up with the fear of an enemy who is beyond the wall and who today have found the key to uprooting that ghost from their lives and building together a new horizon of peace».

They will return to the United Nations next December to strengthen the advocacy action of the Leaders for Peace campaign, presenting the results obtained in the first year of work, in order for the other Member States to endorse it too and take concrete action to reduce the international armed conflicts.