Time.news – “Today’s kids are beautiful, especially those aged 18-20 who have managed to bring many people back to the streets in a massive way through initiatives such as Friday For Future. on which I had the opportunity to meet on several occasions in schools: they are curious, they are not afraid to ask questions, they are not afraid of confrontation. They are clear, alive“. Francesca Mannocchi, a journalist expert in migration and conflicts, writer of reports such as those on Afghanistan, Libya, Lebanon, Yemen, Ukraine, tells Time.news.
Mannocchi wrote for them, for those guys who rightly defines “beautiful”, a new book entitled “The look beyond the border” published by DeAgostini, with which he tells young people from middle school upwards about today’s conflicts, leading them through stories set in the countries where he has worked, lived and seen up close, some facts, events, characters.
The result is perfect: the result is a very useful book for children and teachers, for all those teachers who want to go ‘beyond’ contemporary school books that certainly do not reach the conflicts of today, the Donbass case for example, or the Kurdish question. .
Today there was the first presentation of ‘The look beyond the border’ a @pordenonelegge
Thanks to those who were present and to the careful, generous reading of @andreavianel @DeAgostiniLibri pic.twitter.com/Wr7M9lENrn
— francesca mannocchia (@mannocchia) September 18, 2022
“The idea – explains the author – was born on the proposal of the publishing house that had the desire to tell young people about the great crises of the world. Young people are inundated with information on crises and wars through social media, media and the web, but they do not have access to the history, origins and motivations of a conflict. My book certainly does not have the ambition to be a text of history but an aid for understanding what is happening beyond our borders. In the volume there are individual stories, lives of people I have known, chosen on the basis of the countries I know best. With the aim of helping to create a sort of ‘map’ in children, an idea of what they feel “.
The book is enriched with a glossary: ”Yes – explains Francesca Mannocchi – I think it is right to bring order to the meaning of the words and invite the children to think that behind every word used, there are stories that should not be forgotten”. Thus, when speaking from Afghanistan, one cannot continue reading until first we stop to read what ‘sharia’ means, or the note explaining what ‘Taliban’, ‘urbicide’, ‘isis’ mean.
Before the nearby war began, @deagostini_it he suggested that I try to tell the wars to the younger ones.
To girls and boys who always have an interesting question in their pocket, a question in purity.I tried like this, with ‘The look beyond the border’ pic.twitter.com/YqCvfawcqy
— francesca mannocchia (@mannocchia) September 15, 2022
And for each story referring to the country covered, there is a quick and easy chronology at the end of the chapter that helps to memorize the events. “I tried to write as simply as possible – explains Mannocchi – so as not to bore the children and to ensure that the text is written in a language accessible to them. Talking with a 12 year old is not as simple as with an 18 year old. L ‘I experienced when I went to schools to present my book’ I Khaled sell men and I’m innocent ‘, dedicated to the theme of human trafficking “.
But the words, to which Mannocchi attaches great importance, such as ‘refugee’ for example, serve not to be used superficially because, says the journalist, we must “always ask ourselves if the terms we use to describe reality and human beings do not risk becoming a cage“.
And therefore, “every time we define the life of a human being, calling him a refugee, a refugee or a migrant, we must remember that we risk associating that person with a label that does not do justice to his former life. To the life in which that refugee , or refugee, was a student, a worker, a mother, a grandmother “. We must “start from listening, from the experience of a person, to broaden our gaze: to ensure that a life does not remain just an expression of an emotion but is part of the broader meaning of the trait of history that it lives”.
Will today’s young people change the world? “They are much more informed than one might think – concludes Mannocchi – they defend the environment and know that this is the first real big problem. They do not shy away from confrontation. They understand the migration issue. They are not passive at all. I am very confident” .