On Wednesday 17 May 2023 at 6 p.m. at the Nunziatina comes 'Lusaka on tour: Diego Cassinelli recounts his Zambia'.
Diego 'Mwanza' Cassinelli is a man whose story gives rise to others: pastry chef, social educator, pragmatic dreamer from Moncucco di Vernate, in the province of Milan, he left everything 12 years ago to move to Zambia, to Lusaka. To be precise, in Bauleni, an agglomeration of alleys, tin shacks, dirt roads and poverty: the Zambian version of the South American favelas.
In Bauleni, Diego Cassinelli found the project of a lifetime: he founded In&Out of the ghetto, a Zambian non-profit organisation that supports educational programmes aimed at young people, to enable them to get out of the ghetto through work, education, hope and beauty: thus a social and training centre, the Biko Center, a school, a bakery, a guesthouse for volunteers, a football school, places to make music... and much more.
To narrate his world, the city and Zambia, Diego Cassinelli has written a book, Lusaka, the fourth volume of the series Le città visibili (The Visible Cities) of the OGzero publishing project, edited, for the African part, by journalist and writer Angelo Ferrari, and in May he will be "on the road" to narrate Lusaka, Bauleni and his Zambia in a journey that will touch 27 cities in 27 days and will arrive in Pisa on 17 May at 6 pm.
Accompanied by Prof. Francesco Tamburini, university lecturer and profound connoisseur of the African continent, Diego Cassinelli will meet readers, lovers of Africa and of projects that know how, from below, to make a revolution, in a meeting open to all.
Under the patronage of the Italian Embassy in Zambia, "Lusaka on tour" will cross 15 Italian regions for 27 events: readings, music, debates, meetings with the author across the peninsula, from north to south and back. A non-stop tour, almost an epic feat to tell of a world and a different way of understanding the future, Africa, solidarity.
Lusaka on Tour is composed of a tight schedule of encounters realised thanks to the support of a visionary reality such as Ricola, a historic Swiss company that since 1940 has been producing candies and herbal teas based on the original and unique recipe of the 13 Swiss alpine herbs, and with the collaboration of realities such as Ostello Bello, Combo, POPUP - books/spoilers/snacks, Fogola Fàgola and Africa Sarda, a cultural association founded by the singer-songwriter Carla Cocco (www.africasarda.com).
Lusaka in Tour, with the media partnership of Africa Rivista, involves many realities and people who have enthusiastically joined the initiative by donating spaces, time and voices: bookshops, municipal institutions, journalists, actors and musicians.
