Rebecca Arcobaleno: 67 Italian Blankets for Nelson Mandela

+++ So many Wool Squares for one Blanket

the social, the school and the community work together +++

The history that has united Rebecca di Santo^® and Sonoxsona began in South Africa with a child named Rolihlahla. He has other names: Madiba or Nelson. This kid was Nelson Mandela.

Nelson Mandela was a man, who fought an enormous battle, the battle for the liberation of black people. It turned in a struggle for the rights of everybody over time: ethnic rights, homosexual rights, cultural rights. He has paid his determination with 27 years of detention, but he achieved an extraordinary goal: the abolition of the apartheid and the election to the Presidency of South Africa on May 9, 1994. He received 50 Honoris Causa Degrees, an endless number of prizes and the Nobel Peace Prize “to have developed a decisive role in the dismantlement of the system of apartheid in his Country”.

Baobab Center, Rebecca di Santo^®

Carolyn Steyn, South Africa

In 2011 Nelson Mandela has expressed a desire for his 93^rd birthday, asking to every woman and every man – who wants to celebrate him - to take some simple but effective actions aimed to make the world a better place.

Mandela expressly asked to transform 67 minutes of our life in 67 good actions: 67 is the number of the years that Nelson struggled against the apartheid, for the social equality of the South African people and in the world.

Well, there are so many “good actions” to be taken: read a book to our elderly neighbor, bring some food to the center of immigration, invite to lunch the single mother that we know living daily difficulties.

In 2015, two years after the death of Nelson Mandela, Zelda La Grange, personal assistant of Mandela, proposes to make 67 blankets as an example of 67 good actions. From that day this idea involved a lot of people in South Africa. From schools to jails, everybody was knitting to compose blankets: the world project “67 Blankets for Nelson Mandela Day” was born. Today the blankets has reached around 15.000.

Rossella Casano e Rebecca di Santo^®

Rebecca di Santo^®

This history, together with its message of integration, has come to Italy and the project started in August 2015. Rebecca di Santo^® wanted to answer the question “how can I help my neighbor?”. This her response: everyone can knit, and collaborate with others to made a blanket embracing the world.

The Rebecca di Santo^® project moved its first steps in Italy from Facebook, promoting an initiative – still ongoing – to made square of wool 20 cm x 20 cm, that can be coupled in order to amplify the message of the “good action”, connecting people from different places; every blanket is composed by squares coming from every part of Italy and every square tells a history about unity, welcome and integration. I received squares from China and from Switzerland as well from a very little island in the Mediterranean Sea: Pantelleria.

Rebecca di Santo^® brought the blankets to different reception centers for immigrants: Sprar near Florence, Rome (Baobab Center), Perugia (Street Unity and CIDIS onlus), and Lugano in Switzerland (Amnesty International).

The project moved forward and was extended to local schools thanks to the association SONOXSONA.

The relationship with the South Africa has always been maintained, giving us the sense to belong to a great history with our small gestures and, meanwhile, to return them the gratitude for such an effective idea. An idea able to involve people and to show that working together is the best way to realize integration.

Receive the message of respect from the Italian Consul in South Africa, Mark Petacco, and from the philanthropist and animator of the initiative of the 67 Blankets, Carolyn Steyn, have filled of meaning and emotion our action.

The institutional representative has gathered indeed the deep sense of the initiative: weave together yarn of different skein and people from different cultures. This the core message expressed to all the people attending the event in the Auditorium by the alderman to the scholastic and social politics Claudia Maria Travicelli, the President of Social Zone Elisabetta Galletti and the Guarantor of the infancy and the adolescence Maria Pia Serlupini.

With their actions, the children teach us. They have worked by hand on the looms with threads of colored wool, demonstrating that reception and cohabitation are entirely natural.

Kids have delivered 37 blankets in the hands of the boys welcomed in the reception centers managed by the association CIDIS Onlus. This was a great moment in terms of reciprocity and knowledge.

The project, conceived together by Rebecca di Santo^® and the Association Sonoxsona, was funded by the Cassa di Risparmio di Perugia Foundation. It involved 24 classes, 8 schools. Patronized by the City of Assisi, it was also participated by Assisi, Bastia Umbra, Bettona, Cannara and Valfabbrica municipalities, CIDIS Onlus Perugia, Academy Punto Assisi, Center Pastoral Regina Pacis of Assisi, and The Circle of the friendship Onlus in Rome.

Blankets from South Africa

Abderrahim El Khanchouli, member of the Islamic Cultural association Arrahmas, invited to the event, tell us about the world that we wish for

«Like the squares in the blanket the people can joint togheter this is the direction of migration. I’m an immigrant. Some people migrates for necessity others migrate for fun. I have followed the flock, because my family use to emigrate before me and the immigration is a beautiful thing, because helps us to know us and to enrich us. Immigration is an invitation to all of us to leave our fears and prejudices. I'm also afraid of losing my roots, and even you are afraid of what comes from far away... instead there is always something to give and receive each other, there is always an interaction, reciprocity.»