The projects and initiatives of Still I Rise have drawn great attention from the Italian media over the past three months. Interviews, features and TV reports focused on various issues, such as the organization’s effort to raise awareness about the situation in Northwest Syria and its desire for a revolution in the Italian education system.
In July, Still I Rise helped turn the national media spotlight back on the deteriorating health situation in Northwest Syria. Although the conditions of millions of people in the region are making fewer and fewer headlines, in late July major newspapers and news agencies such as Open and Agenzia Ansa took up Still I Rise’s call, publishing stories about the hundreds of cancer patients who were left without treatment.
The news agency DIRE also published news of protests in Northwest Syria against the UN Security Council’s failure to reach an agreement on the delivery of humanitarian aid through the Bab al-Hawa crossing on the border with Turkey. The protests took place in mid-July, and were documented by Abdulkafi Alhamdo, Still I Rise’s program manager in Syria.
The opening of Still I Rise’s new International School in Colombia, which is set to start by the end of 2024 in Bogotá, caught the attention of Famiglia Cristiana. The article, written by Micol Vallotto, retraces the main steps of Still I Rise and tells the story of its founder and Executive Director Nicolò Govoni, from his beginnings to the meeting with Pope Francis, which took place on June 4th in the RAI studios of the program “A Sua immagine”, the first appearance in history of a Pontiff in a television studio.
Some of the main national newscasts and press agencies, such as ANSA and AGI, reported on Nicolò Govoni’s participation in this historic episode. The meeting with the Pontiff was at the center of a series of interviews that the founder of Still I Rise gave in the following days, including those aired by Radio Lombardia and Rai Radio Uno. Still I Rise was also at the center of the 29th June episode of the RAI show “Tutto il bello che c’è”, through an interview with the organization’s founder and a focus on the Through Our Eyes exhibition at the European Library in Rome.
Via an article written by Antonella Barina about Clown One Italia’s workshop at the Still I Rise International School in Nairobi, Il Venerdì di Repubblica also reported on the organization’s projects. An in-depth interview with Nicolò Govoni was published by Radiotelevisione Svizzera (RSI) during the program “Millevoci,” hosted by Natascia Bandecchi and aired simultaneously on TV on La2 and on radio on Rete Uno, on June 27.
The founder of Still I Rise was also interviewed by TGCOM24 and Donna Moderna, on July 3 and August 17, respectively, focusing on the need for school reform in Italy: “What we are creating with Still I Rise is a model that, if it were replicated in Milan, as it will be, would create lines of parents queuing up to enroll their children,” he told Donna Moderna journalist Anna Tagliacarne. “Education and schools are the place where citizens who will contribute to the development of society grow up, the place where children can be happy and comfortable with themselves.”
