The EU school student movement is getting stronger: Rete degli Studenti Medi welcome in OBESSUland!
OBESSU would like to introduce our new Candidate Organisation Rete degli Studenti Medi (RSM) from Italy!
RSM expressed its interest in being part of OBESSU at the beginning of the year and they took part as guests in our last General Assembly (11-12 August, Amsterdam). The event gave RSM the possibility to get to know the platform and to have an overview of what OBESSU is working on. Today, we are really happy to welcome Rete degli Studenti Medi in OBESSUland!
We asked RSM to answer a few questions to give the platform a picture of what they are doing and what RSM is.
Tell us a bit about Rete degli Studenti Medi
Our school student union was born in 2008 from the cooperation of three national associations (REdS, SDS and ISIM) active in Italy at the beginning of this century. The aim was to build a stronger high school student union, to defend student rights, to represents school students’ needs in everyday life and to make school students’ voice heard both at regional and national level. We strongly believe in direct participation of school students in the school life and we consider necessary that students get organised, playing an important role in national political debate about education and human rights as a whole. Over the last 20 years, each Italian government has tried to change the school system without taking into account students and teachers’ opinions. For this reason, we were against the latest school reforms in Italy and, together with teachers’ unions and the University Student Union (UdU), we were leading local and national rallies and protests.
The structure of our union and our presence in most of Italian regions make us one of the main stakeholders when it comes to matters related to education in Italy. Furthermore, we are recognised directly by the Minister of Education and we represent school students’ positions in meetings with political parties and regional and national bodies. To give you an example, last summer the Italian Minister of Education Stefania Giannini joined a debate on the last school reform during the Revolution Camp (our national summer camp), and we were also contacted and interviewed by several presidents of Italian regions about regional laws on student rights.
What are the main educational struggles of young people in Italy?
Young people in Italy are suffering the effects of decades of national government budget cuts on secondary education and university. A quite large number of young people are obliged to leave school due to the high cost of school books and transport, with drastic effects on our society and in particularly in the poorest regions on the country. For example, in Southern Italy more than the 30% of school students do not finish high school and they rather search for underpaid jobs to help their families (source: Internazionale.it). With other percentages, we can find similar situations in other parts of the country, where children with low income background have not enough public support to attend high school and/or university.
In order to face this situation, we believe in stronger public services and support for students, and for this reason we fight for national and regional laws to improve welfare and financial support for low income families. When this is not possible, we try to organise services to support school students, like second hand school book markets.
Moreover, knowing the terrible conditions of our school buildings, we campaign for a safer school environment and we foster for a proper use of new technologies within school. Rete degli Studenti Medi is also promoting activities all around the country to spread knowledge and debates about the Italian constitutional values, LGBTQI community rights, workers’ rights, and inclusion of migrants in our schools and communities. We also campaign against mafia with a big project which sees hundreds of Italian students joining every year the “Campi della Legalità” – summer camps taking place in 9 Italian regions where young volunteers work on territories confiscated from the mafia and now controlled by anti-mafia associations, including RSM.
What is the motivation behind your interest to join OBESSU?
Rete degli Studenti Medi is really interested in OBESSU, because it could be a good opportunity for us to learn about other European education systems, to exchange ideas and to implement other organisations’ best practices at national level. We really hope to cooperate intensively with all OBESSU Member, Candidate and Affiliate Organisations to better understand the developments of education policies at a European Level. In fact, over the last year of international relations and activities, we have realised that we face similar issues and concerns on education and student welfare matters, with other European school student organisations. We consider necessary to take action all together, to join the forces and to represent school student rights all over our continent.
Anything you look forward to or expect to about the upcoming join initiatives with OBESSU?
We are looking forward to taking part in OBESSU events and in particular to join the upcoming Working Groups OBESSU is planning to establish on specific educational aspects. Our members are willing to get to know the different situations students have to face all over the continent, aiming for a better student welfare and quality services. To sum up, RSM wants to be part of this amazing international movement because we strongly believe that together we are stronger!
Replies by Giuseppe Lipari, International Officer – RSM
