THE MAISON DE LA PAIX

 

CASA UNIVERSALE DELLE CULTURE

The Maison de la Paix - Casa Universale delle Culture is a place strongly representative, in which will convey the knowledge of the different identities and cultures, structuring permanently initiatives aimed at the spreading of peace, necessary for the shared development.

The Maison de la Paix - Casa Universale delle Culture (MdP) is a project conceived by Michele Capasso, approved by many Countries and international organizations. It is an architecture that keeps the memory of many Peace activities which created history, often more than the wars, but it is – above all – a space "to build” Peace.

The architectonical complex has an important symbolic worth: it represents the Countries of the World engaged in the Peace process and the Countries victim of the conflicts.

Proposed by the Fondazione Mediterraneo with the Maison des Alliances – together with the main adherent organizations, such as the Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly, the League of Arab States, the "Anna Lindh" Euro-Mediterranean Foundation and others, the MdP represents a referent point for all the ones who dedicate their lives to peace.

The symbol of the MdP is the "Totem for Peace", an artwork by the Italian sculptor Mario Molinari which the Fondazione Mediterraneo is promoting all around the world, creating the network of the "Cities for Peace".

The first seat of the MdP was inaugurated on the 14th of June 2010 (Maison de la Paix - Casa Universale delle Culture) in the historical building of the Grand Hotel de Londres in Naples.

The action of the Maison de la Paix - Casa Universale delle Culture aims at improving the main activities of the "Universal Forum of Cultures" in: Barcelona (2004), Monterrey (2007), Valparaiso (2010) and Naples (2013).

The Maison de la Paix performs most of the initiatives jointly with the Maison de la Méditerranée.

 

A delegation from the United States of the World took part in the various sessions of the UNESCO International Conference "Cultural Heritage in the 21st Century" held in Naples from 27 to 29 November 2023.
On this occasion, the long-standing relations with UNESCO were emphasised: from the visits of former Directors-General Mayor and Bokova to the programmes on water and cultural heritage, coordinated by United States of the World members Maurizio Iaccarino (former UNESCO Deputy Director) and Massimo Pica Ciamarra.
Secretary-General Michele Capasso then retraced the main stages since 1987 and underlined the importance in the Constitution of the United States of the World of the articles devoted to climate change, ecological conversion and the protection of cultural heritage - tangible and intangible - in perfect harmony with UNESCO's mission and the issues addressed by the Naples conference.
Among other things, the numerous visits of André Azoulay - Advisor to the King of Morocco and father of the current UNESCO Director General Audrey Azoulay - to the United States of the World headquarters were recalled.
A number of delegates visited the United States of the World headquarters and the Museum of Peace and were impressed by the beauty of the site, an emotional heritage of humanity, and by the 4K videos of the UNESCO World Heritage sites in Campania and other places around the world.

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After visiting places in the historic centre of Naples, delegates to the UNESCO International Conference "Cultural Heritage in the 21st Century" were welcomed to the United States of the World and the Museum of Peace by Secretary-General Prof. Michele Capasso and other members of the institution.
On this occasion, the long-standing relations with UNESCO were emphasised: from the visits of former Director Generals Mayor and Bokova to the programmes on water and cultural heritage, coordinated by United States of the World members Maurizio Iaccarino (former UNESCO Deputy Director) and Massimo Pica Ciamarra.
Secretary General Michele Capasso then retraced the main stages since 1987 and underlined the importance in the Constitution of the United States of the World of the articles devoted to climate change, ecological conversion and the protection of cultural heritage - tangible and intangible - in perfect harmony with UNESCO's mission and the issues addressed by the Naples conference.
Among other things, the numerous visits of André Azoulay - Advisor to the King of Morocco and father of the current UNESCO Director General Audrey Azoulay - to the United States of the World were recalled.
The delegates were impressed by the beauty of the site, a World Heritage Site, and by the 4K videos of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Campania and other places around the world.

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Despite the absence of Pope Francesco at COP28, the Faith Pavilion was inaugurated in Dubai with the screening of video messages by Imam Ahmad al-Tayyeb and the Pontiff himself in the presence of Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin and Cardinal Miguel Ayuso, President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. The UAE Minister for Tolerance and Coexistence, Shaykh Nahayan Mabarak Al Nahyan, did the honours at the Pavilion of Faith before presiding with Miguel Moratinos, UN Representative for the Alliance of Civilisations, at the special event of the Global Tolerance Alliance that invited Imam Yahya Pallavicini and Rabbi David Rosen alongside local Coptic Christian and Sikh religious leaders.
A delegation from the United States of the World and the Fondazione Mediterraneo took part in the proceedings.
On this occasion, the Faith Pavilion was inaugurated for the first time within the ongoing climate conference in Dubai.

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The United States of the World organised the "World Volunteer Day" in various countries.
The coordinator of the "Volunteering and Human Rights" section of the United States of the World, Senator Giuseppe Lumia, spoke at a significant meeting promoted in Padua by the Luciano Tavazza Association and the new European Volunteer Network (Re.V.E., which recalls the French "rêve", i.e. dream).
In Padua, the proposal to amend the Third Sector Code was presented.
A proposal that sums up the discomfort experienced today by the Volunteers of the small but vital groups, which act in local communities, and of the territorial and national Networks, which still have the desire to change the path of humanity through the concrete example of promoting new relationships and sharing with those who live the condition of discomfort, marginalisation and loneliness.
A proposal that has these objectives: 

  1. to overcome the currently asphyxiating excess of bureaucratic and fiscal constraints in the Code on the Third Sector and in particular on organised volunteering.
  2. make it clear that Volunteering is necessarily free of charge and has exclusive aims of altruity, proximity, education and solidarity in all fields of social and cultural action.
  3. make it clear that Volunteering must have relations with institutions of "high integration" and not of vassalage or prostration to the powerful.

Modern volunteering is not welfare, it is not called upon to 'plug the holes' produced by society, the economy and politics. Rather, it is a concrete experience that, if done with conscience and preparation, changes the lives of volunteers and supports those profound changes that are needed more than ever within our consciences, in relationships and in the most dramatic situations of human existence, which has to deal with inequalities of all kinds, with devastating wars, with the expansion of substance and behavioural addictions, with the worsening of gender discrimination, which then unleash unspeakable violence, with the spread of mafias, increasingly collusive and powerful, with the still underestimated climate change, just to mention the main crises underway.

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The professor Michele Capasso - Secretary-General of the "United States of the World" and president of the "Fondazione Mediterraneo" - addressed, as usual, a message for the new year 2023.
The hope is that in this year we can reach a truce and then peace in Israel, Palestine, Ukraine and in other parts of the world through the enhancement of diversity.
“Only by tackling, solving and harmonizing diversity, conditions of misery, ignorance and injustice in the world - says prof. Capasso - it is possible to extinguish hotbeds of discord, riot, hatred; it must be understood that diversities, if harmonized, constitute a strength and a source of enrichment for all humanity, complementing each other instead of opposing each other. It is not a question of pursuing a system of universal harmony, as Fourier or Leibnitz wished, because we started from a pre-established universal harmony: the great inequalities existing between our brothers and sisters scattered throughout the world require our commitment to harmonize them. On this theme it is worth proposing an example: if in an orchestra everyone played on their own, a 'cacophony' would arise; if all the instruments were identical, it would be 'monotony'; the inequality of instruments and the harmonization of sounds is much better to arrive at a great ‘universal symphony’”.

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