On 6 April, the United Nations celebrated the "International Day of Sport for Development and Peace", proclaimed on 23 August 2013 by the general meeting in honour of the opening date of the modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896. The Foundation's contribution is also reported in the website UNRIC Italia.
The values of sport are the values of universality and harmony. On this International Day of Sport for Development and Peace, we combine our energy and enthusiasm to contribute to building a world of respect, sharing and peace through sport. This is the message of Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO, on the occasion of this 6 April, International Day of Sport for Development and Peace. This is also why the Opera Campana dei Caduti Foundation, which precisely makes social interaction in the perspective of peace one of its strengths, on 21 September, as part of the International Day of Peace, will organize at its headquarters in Rovereto a moment of reflection on the topic in which the President of Coni Giovanni Malagò will take part. Precisely because by its very nature sport is participation, inclusion and citizenship, on Colle di Miravalle, different personalities will intervene to emphasize the need to use this tool more and more in order to unite individuals and communities, provide the possibility to learn the discipline, consolidate self-confidence and reiterate fundamental values such as tolerance, cooperation and the ability to manage victories and accept defeats.
Malagò has chosen to intervene on the theme "the spirit of sport is the reason for life and the condition of the future of peace, civil conscience, human rights and solidarity" by linking the reflection on this area of society with the work that the Foundation has been carrying on for decades under the symbol of Maria Dolens, the bell fused with the bronze of the cannons of the First World War, which every evening, with its hundred gongs commemorates the fallen of all wars and invites us to reflect and work to promote a culture of inclusion. However, that of the President of CONI is just one of the peace conferences that will be held on the Miravalle hill, where on 25 May, Father Federico Lombardi, Director of the Holy See Press Office from 2006 to 2016, will hold a Lectio Magistralis on the meaning of the information and its relationship with the values on which the Foundation's work is based.
Starting from the visionary idea of merging death instruments to make it the symbol of life, the Opera Campane dei Caduti Foundation builds paths of hope and from these develops initiatives that are based on the creative interpretation of the values symbolized by the Bell of Peace. In 2014, at the opening of the Great War celebrations, a "Civil Pilgrimage on the Path of Peace" was organized, which brought hundreds of people on the steps of the young soldiers who had languished in the trenches a century before. On their return, the pilgrims were welcomed by a concert at the foot of Maria Dolens. Five years later, the journey starts again from the same point, with the same beliefs that now find support even in the UN indications.
By defining the objectives and goals for 2030, the UN calls for "Providing quality, fair and inclusive education, and learning opportunities for all", urging those who, like the Bell, have an observer role in strengthening and expanding teaching and cultural activity. For the Foundation, it is about intensifying an activity that it has been carrying out for decades and that since 2008, has found in music one of the points of reference, with numerous initiatives including "Instruments of Peace", which brought to the Hill some of the greatest musicians active on the world stage, and the Ennio Morricone Award, with the Oscar award that reminded the whole world of the role of Maria Dolens in promoting the culture of dialogue.
Continuing on this path after the meeting with President Malagò, the Foundation will propose a concert based on the relationship between sport and art, to propose a different way of looking at the same issue, to sublimate the message of harmony, concord and culture through music, the only way to keep man from violence.