We are living through a difficult historical period. The rising cost of living is putting workers and families under increasing strain. Every day, they are forced to cope with ever higher expenses while their wages become increasingly inadequate. Institutions that were once regarded as centres of excellence, such as hospitals and schools, are now suffering from financial and structural shortages that inevitably affect the quality of work.
Yet the schools of Reggio Emilia resist these difficulties every day. Thanks to the work of all school staff, they continue to strive to provide children with a quality education based on sound pedagogical principles, placing the child at the centre and showing that childhood is not merely a period in which children are the recipients of care and assistance, but a fundamental stage of life in which the seeds of tomorrow’s society begin to take root. All children have rights. Not only Italian children, not only children of Jewish origin, but also Palestinian children who no longer have homes to live in, hospitals where they can receive treatment, or schools where they can learn.
Malaguzzi used to say: “A child is made of one hundred. A child has one hundred languages, one hundred hands, one hundred thoughts, one hundred ways of thinking, of playing and of speaking.” But what remains for a child who has had everything taken away from them, even the possibility of playing?
We call on Israeli delegations and Jewish schools to speak out about the destruction that the Zionist system has wrought in Palestine. We ask them to speak out about the genocide in Gaza and to make their positions clear.
Those who support the atrocities we have been forced to witness in these years are clearly not welcome.
We also demand transparency from the institution regarding its intentions, and a more active involvement of teachers in sensitive issues such as this one, in order to prevent similar situations from arising in the future and placing all workers and families in a difficult position. They are the living part of the educational community of our schools.
The democracy we want is, in fact, based on the direct participation of workers.
We stand with the parents who wrote and signed the open letter addressed to the institution and who, at the consultation meeting, will call for the institutional document to be amended so as to make explicit the condemnation of the genocide by the Israeli delegation and the US Jewish schools.
We call on all staff and all parents to join us at the protest on 6 October at 6 pm, outside the Loris Malaguzzi International Centre, to show our support for the teachers and parents at the consultation meeting who oppose welcoming delegations without clear and unequivocal statements.
WE DEMAND CLARITY AND CLEAR-CUT POSITIONS
ZIONISM OUT OF EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION
