Manifesto for change
Youth and future
WRITE YOUR MESSAGE AND JOIN OUR PROJECT.
THE CALL FOR IDEAS
What do you want to change in the society you live in and how?
What is your word for change?
Dear people,
I am Giovanni Caccamo, an Italian artist and singer-songwriter. For a couple of years now, I have been on a journey in search of ideas, designs and evolutionary visions, to counter the nihilism and obscurantism that threaten our dreams and hopes, in the knowledge that darkness always holds the precious opportunity to turn on a light. At the gates of a new spring, veterans of a long period of apnoea, forced into a delicate and profound metamorphosis, I think it is our duty to ask ourselves what the most urgent changes in our society might be.
This appeal I am addressing to you, is the international continuum of the competition of ideas Word to Young People, which I launched last 31 March 2022, in collaboration with the Vatican Museums, in response to the appeal of the writer Andrea Camilleri, a pillar of Italian literature, who entrusted the new generations with the arduous task of starting a new humanism.
I met thousands of young people in universities, prisons and reception centres, listened to their needs, their fears and their vision of the future.
What would you change about the society you live in and how? What is your word for change? These were the two questions answered in writing by thousands of young Italians. The most luminous and profound answers were collected in the book Change Manifesto, with an extraordinary preface by Pope Francis.
On 21 December 2022, fifteen young people, representing the thousands who took part in the ideas competition, took part in the Agora of Change, an artistic performance inside the Stanza della Segnatura in the Vatican Museums, under the famous painting School of Athens by Raphael, in which the words and ideas of each of them entered into a relationship with those of the others. So that this project would not remain just a theoretical reflection, aware that we cannot be exhaustive, we tried to draw up an open list of the values in which our generations recognise themselves and some concrete proposals that could help the society of the future to achieve the desired perspectives and changes.
Today, we would like to address the same questions to you, so that from young people all over the world, a collective reflection may arise that will lay the foundations for a new, evolving future.
Below you will find some examples of various texts contained in the "Manifesto of Change" that you can use as a guide for writing your own, as well as Pope Francis' moving preface.
My word for change is 'gratitude'.
What is yours?
HOW TO PARTICIPATE
Answer the question in writing “What would you change about the society you live in and how?”.
Help us to understand who you are, what’s your story, your culture, your background and vision of the future is and what facet of society you would change - if you deem it appropriate, pay special attention to issues related to your country and territory. Your answer must be substantiated, have a length of at least 500 words and must be submitted to info@manifestoforchange.org by 30 July 2024.
The title of your text shall be your word for change.
THE STORY OF THE PROJECT
Manifesto for change
Youth and Future
The Manifesto for Change - Youth and future will be the international expansion of the Italian project Parola ai giovani, which I conceived and promoted in Italy between 2022 and 2023, to give young a voice and give birth to a new humanism, in collaboration with the Vatican Museums and MAXXI - National Museum of XXI Century Arts. The project is the follow up to my latest album Parola.
The album is based on the call made by writer Andrea Camilleri, who asked young people to be the forerunners of a new humanism based on giving new value to words. Each song on the album is inspired by a piece of Italian or foreign literature, whether modern or contemporary, introducing each track and interpreted by artists Willem Dafoe, Patti Smith & Jesse Paris Smith, Aleida Guevara as well as by other voices in an intergenerational dialogue.
The Parola ai giovani project was conceived after the release of the album, and is based on the assumption that the contribution of thousands of young people was needed to elicit a new Humanism. Thus, two roll call questions were launched, “What would you change about the society you live in and how? What is your word for change?”.
Thousands of young people answered these questions in writing. Each one of them chose a word of change and wrote a short composition summarizing what they would change as well as practical ways on how they would achieve it. The Call for Ideas was addressed to young people of all religions, gender identity cultures and social backgrounds. Diversity is treasured as a value for building the future.
The fifteen young authors of the most brilliant compositions joined in an artistic performance, inside Raffaello’s Stanza della Segnatura in the Vatican Museums to discuss change and the future. During the session, Marco Anelli, Marina Abramovic’s photographer, produced an extraordinary photo-reportage.
As a follow up to the discussion a Manifesto was drafted which was published in May 2023 by Treccani, prefaced by Pope Francis.
Since there is no future without past, some of the young people’s compositions were overprinted on cotton cloth paper with lead typefaces, based on Gutenberg’s 15th-century technique. Each one of these works was then given to a great contemporary Master who produced an inspirational artwork based on the endless and timeless exchange among generations. The lineup of the artists who joined this project was impressive: Francesca Cataldi, Maurizio Cattelan, Mario Ceroli, Emilio Isgrò, Mimmo Jodice, Giulia Napoleone, Mimmo Paladino, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Fabrizio Plessi, Arnaldo Pomodoro, Ferdinando Scianna, Guido Strazza. The artworks became an extraordinary exhibition at the Rimini Meeting and the Museo del Novecento in Milan, entitled The Shape of Words, curated by Micol Forti.
Proceeds from the sale of the book and works are donated to the Andrea Bocelli Foundation to support scholarships for young people in need.
On September 1, 2023, the documentary of the project was screened and presented at the Venice Film Festival.
7 April 2024, at the UN General Assembly in New York, the call for ideas Youth and future will be open to all students around the world to draft the international edition of the Manifesto for Change.
From all the texts received, the 100 most luminous and profound compositions will be selected to be included in the book Manifesto for Change to be published in 2025. As we did in the Italian version of the Manifesto, we will entrust some of the most beautiful texts received from the young people to some of the major international master artists.
COMPACT
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COMPANY
How many are we?
1247
Texts received in Italy
530.000
Young people involved
12
Masters of Contemporary Art
200.000
Fundraising
THE MEETINGS
Giovanni Caccamo will meet thousands of students around the world, listening to the ideas, fears and visions of young people, to draw up the Manifesto for Change.
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15 aprile '24 - Harvard University
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16 aprile '24 - Berklee College of Music
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17 aprile '24 - Wellesley College
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18 aprile '24 - Yale University
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18 settembre '24 - UNIVALI Brasil
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25 settembre '24 - UANL Mexico
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Date coming soon - Tokyo University
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Date coming soon - Sorbonne Universitè
COLLABORATION
Our Partners
WHY VOLASO
A Different Approach, Using a New Method of Manufacturing
Manifesto for change
Youth and future
WRITE YOUR MESSAGE AND JOIN OUR PROJECT.
Dear people,
I am Giovanni Caccamo, an Italian artist and singer-songwriter. For a couple of years now, I have been on a journey in search of ideas, designs and evolutionary visions, to counter the nihilism and obscurantism that threaten our dreams and hopes, in the knowledge that darkness always holds the precious opportunity to turn on a light. At the gates of a new spring, veterans of a long period of apnoea, forced into a delicate and profound metamorphosis, I think it is our duty to ask ourselves what the most urgent changes in our society might be.
This appeal I am addressing to you, is the international continuum of the competition of ideas Word to Young People, which I launched last 31 March 2022, in collaboration with the Vatican Museums, in response to the appeal of the writer Andrea Camilleri, a pillar of Italian literature, who entrusted the new generations with the arduous task of starting a new humanism.
I met thousands of young people in universities, prisons and reception centres, listened to their needs, their fears and their vision of the future.
What would you change about the society you live in and how? What is your word for change? These were the two questions answered in writing by thousands of young Italians. The most luminous and profound answers were collected in the book Change Manifesto, with an extraordinary preface by Pope Francis.
Dear people,
I am Giovanni Caccamo, an Italian artist and singer-songwriter. For a couple of years now, I have been on a journey in search of ideas, designs and evolutionary visions, to counter the nihilism and obscurantism that threaten our dreams and hopes, in the knowledge that darkness always holds the precious opportunity to turn on a light. At the gates of a new spring, veterans of a long period of apnoea, forced into a delicate and profound metamorphosis, I think it is our duty to ask ourselves what the most urgent changes in our society might be.
This appeal I am addressing to you, is the international continuum of the competition of ideas Word to Young People, which I launched last 31 March 2022, in collaboration with the Vatican Museums, in response to the appeal of the writer Andrea Camilleri, a pillar of Italian literature, who entrusted the new generations with the arduous task of starting a new humanism.
I met thousands of young people in universities, prisons and reception centres, listened to their needs, their fears and their vision of the future.
What would you change about the society you live in and how? What is your word for change? These were the two questions answered in writing by thousands of young Italians. The most luminous and profound answers were collected in the book Change Manifesto, with an extraordinary preface by Pope Francis.
On 21 December 2022, fifteen young people, representing the thousands who took part in the ideas competition, took part in the Agora of Change, an artistic performance inside the Stanza della Segnatura in the Vatican Museums, under the famous painting School of Athens by Raphael, in which the words and ideas of each of them entered into a relationship with those of the others. So that this project would not remain just a theoretical reflection, aware that we cannot be exhaustive, we tried to draw up an open list of the values in which our generations recognise themselves and some concrete proposals that could help the society of the future to achieve the desired perspectives and changes.
Today, we would like to address the same questions to you, so that from young people all over the world, a collective reflection may arise that will lay the foundations for a new, evolving future.
Below you will find some examples of various texts contained in the "Manifesto of Change" that you can use as a guide for writing your own, as well as Pope Francis' moving preface.
My word for change is 'gratitude'.
What is yours?
The Manifesto for Change - Youth and future will be the international expansion of the Italian project Parola ai giovani, which I conceived and promoted in Italy between 2022 and 2023, to give young a voice and give birth to a new humanism, in collaboration with the Vatican Museums and MAXXI - National Museum of XXI Century Arts. The project is the follow up to singer-songwriter Giovanni Caccamo’s latest album Parola.
The album is based on the call made by writer Andrea Camilleri, who asked young people to be the forerunners of a new humanism based on giving new value to words. Each song on the album is inspired by a piece of Italian or foreign literature, whether modern or contemporary, introducing each track and interpreted by artists Willem Dafoe, Patti Smith & Jesse Paris Smith, Aleida Guevara as well as by other voices in an intergenerational dialogue.
The Parola ai giovani project was conceived after the release of the album, and is based on the assumption that the contribution of thousands of young people was needed to elicit a new Humanism. Thus, two roll call questions were launched, “What would you change about the society you live in and how? What is your word for change?”.
Thousands of young people answered these questions in writing. Each one of them chose a word of change and wrote a short composition summarizing what they would change as well as practical ways on how they would achieve it. The Call for Ideas was addressed to young people of all religions, gender identity cultures and social backgrounds. Diversity is treasured as a value for building the future.
The fifteen young authors of the most brilliant compositions joined in an artistic performance, inside Raffaello’s Stanza della Segnatura in the Vatican Museums to discuss change and the future. During the session, Marco Anelli, Marina Abramovic’s photographer, produced an extraordinary photo-reportage.
The Manifesto for Change - Youth and future will be the international expansion of the Italian project Parola ai giovani, which I conceived and promoted in Italy between 2022 and 2023, to give young a voice and give birth to a new humanism, in collaboration with the Vatican Museums and MAXXI - National Museum of XXI Century Arts. The project is the follow up to my latest album Parola.
The album is based on the call made by writer Andrea Camilleri, who asked young people to be the forerunners of a new humanism based on giving new value to words. Each song on the album is inspired by a piece of Italian or foreign literature, whether modern or contemporary, introducing each track and interpreted by artists Willem Dafoe, Patti Smith & Jesse Paris Smith, Aleida Guevara as well as by other voices in an intergenerational dialogue.
The Parola ai giovani project was conceived after the release of the album, and is based on the assumption that the contribution of thousands of young people was needed to elicit a new Humanism. Thus, two roll call questions were launched, “What would you change about the society you live in and how? What is your word for change?”.
Thousands of young people answered these questions in writing. Each one of them chose a word of change and wrote a short composition summarizing what they would change as well as practical ways on how they would achieve it. The Call for Ideas was addressed to young people of all religions, gender identity cultures and social backgrounds. Diversity is treasured as a value for building the future.
The fifteen young authors of the most brilliant compositions joined in an artistic performance, inside Raffaello’s Stanza della Segnatura in the Vatican Museums to discuss change and the future. During the session, Marco Anelli, Marina Abramovic’s photographer, produced an extraordinary photo-reportage.
As a follow up to the discussion a Manifesto was drafted which was published in May 2023 by Treccani, prefaced by Pope Francis.
Since there is no future without past, some of the young people’s compositions were overprinted on cotton cloth paper with lead typefaces, based on Gutenberg’s 15th-century technique. Each one of these works was then given to a great contemporary Master who produced an inspirational artwork based on the endless and timeless exchange among generations. The lineup of the artists who joined this project was impressive: Francesca Cataldi, Maurizio Cattelan, Mario Ceroli, Emilio Isgrò, Mimmo Jodice, Giulia Napoleone, Mimmo Paladino, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Fabrizio Plessi, Arnaldo Pomodoro, Ferdinando Scianna, Guido Strazza. The artworks became an extraordinary exhibition at the Rimini Meeting and the Museo del Novecento in Milan, entitled The Shape of Words, curated by Micol Forti.
Proceeds from the sale of the book and works are donated to the Andrea Bocelli Foundation to support scholarships for young people in need.
On September 1, 2023, the documentary of the project was screened and presented at the Venice Film Festival.
5 April 2024, at the UN General Assembly in New York, the call for ideas Youth and future will be open to all students around the world to draft the international edition of the Manifesto for Change.
From all the texts received, the 100 most luminous and profound compositions will be selected to be included in the book Manifesto for Change to be published in 2025. As we did in the Italian version of the Manifesto, we will entrust some of the most beautiful texts received from the young people to some of the major international master artists.