Solferino 2022, President Francesco Rocca: ‘We must once again find within ourselves the courage to know how to welcome fragility without asking anyone for a passport’

Solferino 2022: 4,000 volunteers from Italy and abroad

Enthusiasm and passion lavished by some 4,000 Red Cross volunteers from all over Italy and abroad who, after a two-year stop due to Covid-19, revived the traditional Torchlight Procession from Solferino to Castiglione delle Stiviere (Mantua) on Saturday evening.

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Francesco Rocca: “there was so much desire for Solferino 2022”.

‘We have faced many challenges together in recent years. There was so much desire for Solferino.

I thought it would be an underwhelming edition, but I had underestimated the power this place has for each of us.

We said goodbye right here in 2019.

Since then, a lot has happened. We are facing the most difficult crises since the Second World War.

I think of Fausto Bertuzzi, the first volunteer to fall for Covid.

It is right and I ask you for a moment of recollection for all those who have left us and so cannot be here with us today together with their families,’ stressed Francesco Rocca, President of the Italian Red Cross and of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) on the stage in Piazza Castello in Solferino, who has just returned from Geneva after being confirmed at the head of IFRC for another four years.

And I also think of the emergencies our Volunteers are facing in the world.

We are experiencing a retreat.

There is more and more shooting at the Red Cross.

If in World War II civilian casualties were 50 per cent, today they are more than 90 per cent.

This world is no longer capable of saying ‘All Brothers’.

And it is an increasingly polarised world.

We saw it with Covid, where the debate was political and not scientific.

We see it now with climate change. 12 million people are at risk of starvation in Africa.

But nobody talks about that.

We are working around the world with the same intensity as we are tackling the crisis in Ukraine.

We have a lot of work to do so that Humanity regains its space.

We must find, once again in ourselves, the courage to know how to welcome fragility without asking anyone for a passport.

This is the spirit of Dunant and Solferino.

This is the sense of our being together’.

This is the emotion of 163 years ago, the same one that drove Henry Dunant in 1859 when, struck by the suffering caused by the bloody Battle of Solferino, he had the idea of giving life to what is now the world’s largest humanitarian organisation.

Solferino 2022 was, once again, a moment of reflection and cultural deepening, thanks to the initiatives at the MICR – Museo Internazionale della Croce Rossa (Longhi Triulzi palace) in Castiglione delle Stiviere, with the presentation of the book ‘Henry Dunant, la croce di un uomo’ (Henry Dunant, a man’s cross), with speeches by the CRI Vice-President, Rosario Valastro, and the President of the Red Cross History Section, Prof. Giuseppe Parlato.

At the end of the meeting, the photographic exhibition ‘Una storia di Umanità’ (A History of Humanity) was inaugurated, also at the MICR, a diffuse tale that starts from the museum and develops in the fabric of the city.

An experiential path, a moment of reflection in the face of serious crises such as the pandemic, the Ukrainian and Afghan emergencies, and migrations, which will see over 40 photographs on display (until the end of September), contributed by professionals of international standing.

The shots of Paolo Pellegrin (Magnum Photos), Fabio Bucciarelli (New York Times, Die Zeit), Stefano Schirato (Vanity Fair), Yara Nardi (Reuters) and the Italian Red Cross reporters Adriano Valentini, Annalisa Ausilio, Emiliano Albensi and Michele Squillantini, document the most engaging and humanly touching moments of these dramas.

Then, in the afternoon in Piazza Castello, with music and entertainment, the Solferino 2022 party began with a DJ set by The Sweet Life Society, veterans of the Eurovision Song Contest

There was also the National Fanfare of the Italian Red Cross and the reading of the Seven Fundamental Principles of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.

The torchlight procession, from around 7.30 p.m., symbolically evoked the historical moments of the birth of modern humanitarianism, along the route taken by the rescuers who transported the wounded during the battle.

A unique and evocative event, illuminated by the light of thousands of torches, which, together with the enthusiasm of the Volunteers, finally revived the magic of an unforgettable history.

The opening ceremony was attended by the Mayor of Castiglione delle Stiviere, Enrico Volpi, the Mayor of Solferino, Germano Bignotti, the President of the CRI of Castiglione delle Stiviere, Arialdo Mecucci, and the President of the CRI of Solferino, Leda Mazzocchi.

In the moments preceding the start of the torchlight procession, the Vice-President of the Italian Red Cross, Rosario Valastro, also received honorary citizenship from the Mayor of Solferino, a recognition already conferred on the President of the CRI, Francesco Rocca.

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Source:

CRI