A prize-giving ceremony took place at the UK Ambassador’s residence in Rome, Villa Wolkonsky, on 29 May 2009, to conclude the first phase of a project aimed at enhancing awareness of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Italy, also in view of the G8 Summit in L'Aquila.

The British Embassy in Rome supports the project, which is promoted by Tavola della Pace and by the Italian Network of Local Authorities for Peace and Human Rights and is also supported by the Italian office of the UN Millennium Campaign.

The first phase of the project consisted in a creative competition titled “Little Authors of Great Thoughts”, involving over 300 Italian primary school children, which was launched in Assisi on 8 May and ended at Villa Wolkonsky on 29 May.

In the framework of the competition, school children wrote messages for the eight world leaders and for the Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi, on the occasion of the Italian G8 Presidency, in which they set out how they would like the eight world leaders who will meet in L'Aquila in July to deal with the problem of poverty and with the Millennium Development Goals.

The best messages were awarded a prize by a jury which included Her Majesty’s Ambassador to Italy Edward Chaplin , UN Millennium Campaign coordinator for Italy Marta Guglielmetti, Tavola della Pace coordinator Flavio Lotti, actor and Oxfam Global Ambassador Colin Firth, cartoonist Fabio Vettori, Repubblica chief editor Ezio Mauro, Rai Tre chief editor Paolo Ruffini, Ansa newswire chief editor Giampiero Gramaglia, presenters of Caterpillar radio show Filippo Solibello and Massimo Cirri, president of National Federation of the Italian Press Roberto Natale and Rainews24 journalist Elisa Marincola.

Leonardo Bernardini from Dante Alighieri primary school in Nocera Umbra was awarded the first prize. In his letter, he asked world leaders “Dear Sirs why nothing has changed? You have to keep your promise, do you understand?
If nothing changes by 2015 I won’t trust you anymore”. The jury said Leonardo was able to “interpret the relationship of trust which needs to exist between governing authorities and citizens”. Leonardo received his prize from the hands of actor and Oxfam Global Ambassador Colin Firth, who had previously called for Italian Prime Minister and current G8 President Silvio Berlusconi to keep commitments made at the 2005 G8 Summit and to make sure that the other G8 members keep their promises.

On the same occasion, the Italian press was introduced to a teaching pack on the Millennium Development Goals and on the consequences of climate change on the poorest people. The pack will be adopted next year in Italian primary schools.

Notes for Editors

Further information is available on the Italian website of the UN Millennium Campaign (in Italian). On the same website, a PDF version of all the letters may be downloaded.

Images of the event are available on our Flickr page.

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