Ingredients:
- inspiration from the book Planetary citizenship reporting the dialogue between Hazel Anderson and Daisaku Ikeda;
- desire to celebrate the 18th November, anniversary of the foundation of the Soka Gakkai (Buddhist society for the creation of value);
- desire to illustrate the marvellous and universal principles of the Earth Charter to friends and neighbours, and to improve friendship relations in the local society through dialogue and music;
- objective to give pre-scholar children and their parents/tutors the possibility of access to a public space during winter, so creating further links among both children and parents (http://escargotferney.blogspot.com/);
- desire to celebrate the Universal Children’s Day (20th Nov);
- determination;
- hope.
Directions:
- Mix the ingredients in your heart and share the mixture with your family and friends, so inspiring them and yourself.
- Base your organisation on simplicity and concreteness, by allowing everybody to contribute, if they want, as they prefer.
- Revise your ideas according to how things evolve, by keeping the objective that everybody feels at ease and involved.
- Involve local associations engaged in ecological and social goals.
- Consider every second you manage to dedicate to this of infinite value, even if you’re feeling ineffective.
- When the concept of impossible appears, use that to feed your determination and faith.
This recipe was applied on Nov 20th in St Genis Pouilly, France, a few hundred meters from the Swiss border (Geneva), promoted by Luca Maciocco and Lorenzo Pistolesi, and made possible by the enthusiastic collaboration of family and friends.
About 50 adults and 20 children (of something like 8 different nationalities and from very different domains, from scientific to farming, through teachers, UN employees, eco activists and others) showed up at the party, where Earth Charter posters, as well as posters related to educational methods like Montessori and Dolto (most of them hand-made and decorated by the children) were exposed. Live music (most of which composed by ourselves) accompanied the party, whose central event was an open-space forum on subjects related to sustainable development, eco-social issues, education and life in general.