The Puglia International School Festival 2006

The Italian coastal town of Sannicandro, on ISouthern Italy’s Adriatic coast: what do middle and high school students fromÃ?¯Ã?¿Ã?½ Italy, Romania, Turkey, Poland and Budapest and other countriesÃ?¯Ã?¿Ã?½have in common? More than you might think. They are all hungry about learning and excited about the challenging world that awaits them once their schooling and studies are completed.

Such was the atmosphere present at the 5th annual Puglia International School Festival, which drew student representatives from over 50 schools in the Puglia Region and abroad. The aim of the event is intended to promote a meeting that fosters exchange of ideas and experiences among students, teachers, parents and directors of the schools with a focus on helping the environment. In particular, the efforts to maintain and perpetuate the national parks in Italy and Europe.

The festival was sponsored by A.N.A.P.I.E (Associazione Nazionale Amici Parchi Italiani ed Europei) or National Association for Italian and European Friends of Parks.
Pupils and students enrolled in every school or University in Italy and the European Union for the 2005-2006 school-years were eligible to participate. For 3 days students compared ideas and talked about the future – their future, in a world where getting a decent education is becoming more and more serious every day.
A round-table discussion kicked things off. An entire morning was blocked out for students to listen, speak and come to realize that international borders can’t keep the ambitions of students from seeking to better themselves through education.
One of the highlights of the festival was the culmination of a journalism competition which saw schools produce a newspaper with based on the theme “The environment around us”. To this end, schools were responsible for organizing classes in journalism which taught students of all age-groups the finer points of interviewing, writing and even photography.
Remarked A.N.A.P.I.E Vice-President Doctor Nazario Vanno, “âÂ?¦We provided the schools with a timeline which ran for 10 weeks. During this period, the schools organized journalism classes usually conducted once-a-week. Most schools had professional journalists from the print and television industry come to discuss their crafts. And no doubt the students were responsible for working on their own time as well in order to get things doneâÂ?¦”
The newspapers were judged according to school grade, with the top ten newspapers receiving trophies. In addition to his school winning a trophy, according to 7th grader Marco Mitti who attends the Giulio Cesare Middle School in Brindisi, it was quite a thrill being just involved in this event. “âÂ?¦It’s an honor being here and have a chance to make friends with students from so many different nationalitiesâÂ?¦”
There was time fun as well – on the last night of the festival, students from Romania, Bucharest, Poland, Turkey as well as Italy displayed a variety of traditional and modern dances and song at a performance help in the Sannicandro Theatre.

For tourists, these are exciting times to be in Europe. But for the youngsters that live here; nothing is guaranteed. If an education can at least open a door of opportunity than that’s a good thing. So maybe it comes as no surprise that in order to succeed, each of the students present for the International School Festival is going to need a combination of skill, talent and a little good luck as well.