About

On 3 October 2021, the Peace Route was inaugurated in Lampedusa. It consists of fourteen stages that are both symbolic and physical at the same time, representing the places of memory, art and social commitment on the island, an itinerary that not only wants to remember, but also to be the starting point for building a better future, in a welcoming island that wants peace.

An itinerary, promoted by the Border Towns and Islands Network, which keeps track of and remembers, relates, unites the points (and stages) of places and monuments that are very different from each other , in terms of history and meaning, but which basically tell the same philosophy, that of peace, which is not only the absence of war, but the passage from violence to diplomacy, from ferocity to solidarity, from inequality to equal opportunities, from individual freedoms to respect for diversity. A journey through time and space, to restore to Lampedusa the complexity and richness of its history, for too long limited only to the narrative of the landings. But this path was not created only to recount the past, nor to remember only the present, wanting instead first of all to generate – step by step – the activation of a different future.
The Path is a first step on the road to the birth of a Study Centre for Peace on Lampedusa, which connects the territory with the world, which offers young people from Lampedusa and Linosa an alternative to migration, which takes the island out of that logic of exclusion, which for decades has made it a border, first for political and criminal internees and now for migrants. Lampedusa no longer wants to be just the object of a story, but the subject of a cultural and ethical proposal, with the development of a centre that will stand as a place where peace becomes a political project. War and climate change, poverty and hunger, are elements that combine to generate migration and – beyond rhetoric and populism – only by studying these phenomena, by involving the migrants’ countries of origin, will we all contribute to a better future. This path is a first step, indeed fourteen steps, to begin a long journey towards the future for the island and the world.