Closing Ceremony 2018 – Major of Duino- - Daniela Pallotta

Magnificent Rector, University President, Dear Mr President, Unlike some other UWCs, which have rather isolated campuses, our UWC Adriatic is integrated into a village, making the College an integral part of the local community.

UWC attracts students from all over the world and teaches them to learn through direct experience by collaborating and sharing their daily lives at the College. This educational approach helps students widen their horizons and enhance their strongest points, truly making them citizens of the world. UWC Adriatic guides young people at the threshold of adult independence on the way to being conscientious individuals with the energy and understanding to work for positive change. Experiences gained within a diverse multicultural community in an Italian region at the crossroads of cultural, political, historical and geographical transitions are used to stimulate personal reflection and growth.

All UWCs share the belief that the heart of their philosophy lies in the experience of offering assistance to members of the community who are in need. This is even more true at Duino College, which is physically integrated into the life of the local community. The Social Service Programme has an enormous significance in the life of the College. It is through social service that College students apply their ideals to everyday life; it is the beginning of “making the world a better place” by offering help to others regardless of differences.

The College provides students with a wide range of organised service opportunities. Social services include: art activities with children, science for kids, music with children, collaborations with our schools of Sistiana and Duino, practicing English with children, but also support to our senior citizens in F.lli Stuparich Home, the “Adopt me” project enables College students interested in making friends locally to find a family in the area they can meet up with in their spare time.

This could be for an occasional Sunday lunch or for a long weekend or longer holidays when some students can’t make it back home. In this way a mutually beneficial relationship can develop: students can experience the local culture and benefit from a support system outside the College, and the local community can become much more familiar with the UWC values and multicultural outlook. We love you UWC, our children loves you students, my daughter loves your flip-flops in February.

UWC Adriatic is home to all of the ideals that concur to create a better human society. This institution, set up in 1982, that the Region Venezia Giulia supports with the greatest conviction, is a great need for this kind of experimentation in border areas like those of the Upper Adriatic, in response to those that raise walls.

We ask schools to educate the citizens of the future. The students that have come to this College over the decades have then gone on to become leaders in their communities and countries, at times attaining the highest responsabilities. For this reason we need, more than ever today, the presence of the College of

Duino, of its educational model, of its young people destinated to became a ruling class spread throughout the world.

UWC Adriatic, an educational institution that is recognised by all universities, teaches its students that cultural identity is strong when it acknowledges diversity and engages in dialogue. It is an educational model that promotes change in the world.The solid history of this institution based in Duino - which rises on a magnificent cliff overlooking the sea, is one of the reasons why I am proud to be Mayor of this Municipality.

Thank you ! I am with you!