HAPPENING AT THE UN
A FAIRY TALE FOR WORLD DAY FOR CULTURAL DIVERSITY FOR DIALOGUE AND DEVELOPMENT

On the occasion of the United Nations World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development, which is celebrated every 21 May, we propose a story by Agnese Bizzarri, writer of books for young children and active in educational and cultural projects at foundations, institutions, public administrations, universities and non-profit associations. The hope is that our readers will find time to read it to their children, perhaps at bedtime.

By the sea some friends gathered from different parts of the world, with different cultures, religions and ways of life. They needed to solve a problem: one of them had left because he was not heard during an argument. He didn't want to be right, nor to dominate the others, on the contrary he wanted to talk and share ideas but unfortunately an unexpected quarrel had broken out.

So, they tried to work out why. They questioned the Sun, who said that the argument had been too hot and blazing, the waters needed to calm.

At that point they asked the sea, which with its wisdom, replied that a storm of verbs, adjectives and nouns had arrived and therefore nothing was understood anymore but only sound and non-constructive waves, flawed accents, commas and missing spaces.

To get another opinion they spoke to a heron. With his elegance he said that words travel and if they take the wrong direction they are never recovered and the conversation is gone.

Then they asked the girls and boys questions. They were so inquisitive and eager to listen. With their eyes and their smiles, they said nothing but had in fact understood everything.

A conclusion was soon reached: to communicate it was necessary to dialogue. Dialogue is a word made up of “dia” which means through, and “logos”, which means discourse. A dialogue is something that gets through. If this is missing, every word and concept will go on a tangent and no one will be able to speak, write or express themselves. The "dia" in dialogue says it all! It is a line that crosses hearts, peoples, religions, beliefs and languages in their diversity and in the beauty and richness of their complementarity.

The friends recovered their companion in their adventure. They began to talk, to chat without aggressiveness, without any threat, friction, rancour or judgement respecting the differences that made the dialogue fascinating and interesting. And in the dialogue, they all began to build thoughts and games together. They planned trips, invented new words, exchanged ideas. With the dialogue appeared a wave of creativity and therefore of life and transformation.

In that "dia" there is a universe, in "through" there is the whole world.