Focsiv National Award for Civil Service and Civil Peace Corps
Focsiv national award given to Silvia Dellapiana, a volunteer with Operation Dove in Lebanon, Greece and Palestine
Focsiv national award presented to Silvia Dellapiana, a volunteer with Operation Dove in Lebanon, Greece and Palestine
A Focsiv national award for Civil Service and Civil Peace Corps was presented to a young woman from Alba, in the Cuneo area, who chose to devote two years to international volunteering.
Silvia Dellapiana is 30 years old and has already traversed some of the most turbulent areas on the international geopolitical scene-Lebanon, Greece and Palestine.
The driving force was all ideal:
“I decided to devote two years of my life to volunteering because I believe in an ideal:
entering conflicts in a more humane way.
I left because I want to fight for a Europe that can still be,
because I believe in the possibility,
one day, to be able to look into the eyes again of the people I have met over the years
and to the question “but wasn’t this the Europe of rights?” to finally be able to answer “yes.””
It is this humanity, questioned or even betrayed, that Operation Dove volunteers guard as a precious asset with their presence.
The volunteers’ presence is a guarantee of human rights, so forgotten even in Europe’s very own Greece.
The network of white helmets, of which Caritas Italiana, Gavci and Comunità Papa Giovanni XXIII are members, becomes a presence of peace in places of war, becomes the face of all those who believe in an open Europe, without borders or walls, in a nonviolent Italy that learns to welcome instead of reject.
Silvia concludes her speech at the award ceremony this way, “I want to dedicate this award to my fellow travelers and to all the people on the move with whom I have shared a piece of my life, who have taught me that, as human beings, we can be better than this.”