The students of the World House, together with the staff of Rondine, were in Leuven, Belgium, to take part in the REstART Festival, an international event promoted by the European Forum for Restorative Justice (EFRJ) that brings together art and restorative justice with the aim of inspiring dialogue and transformation.
Participation in the festival renewed the long-standing collaboration with the EFRJ, a key network supported by the European Union and committed to the development and dissemination of restorative justice across EU Member States. A well-established partnership that had already seen Rondine Cittadella della Pace take part in the European Forum for Restorative Justice in Tallinn (May 2024), entitled “Just Times: Restorative Justice Responses in Dark Times”, through the testimonies of two young activists from the World House programme, Adelina Tërshani (Kosovo) and Elina Khachatryan (Armenia). This collaboration was further strengthened by the presence of the EFRJ at YouTopic Fest 2025.
The REstART Festival also hosted the exhibition Finding Oneself in Translation, curated by Adelina Tërshani herself, which – through stories and photographs – showed how language can be transformed from a barrier into a bridge. The 12 words of the Rondine Method thus became opportunities for encounter and dialogue, capable of turning prejudice into values of empathy and reconciliation.
A central event of the festival was the performance – non-performance – Dissonanze in Accordo, which brought to the stage the real-life testimonies of young people from Rondine’s World House, coming from countries affected by conflict and committed to learning how to live and engage in dialogue with the “enemy”.
Through words and music, the performance narrated the journey from conflict to reconciliation, showing how inherited hatred can be transformed into human encounter. The two dimensions intertwined and merged into a single voice: dissonances slowly came into harmony to convey a new message. The performance offered an artistic transposition of Rondine’s message, telling the story of the daily work of conflict resolution carried out at the Cittadella della Pace, on the banks of the Arno River, in the heart of Tuscany.
The intensity of the storytelling was further enhanced by the collaboration with the Orchestra Instabile of OIDA from Arezzo.
The initiative was part of the activities of the Leaders for Peace campaign, in the days leading up to 10 December, International Human Rights Day and the anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. A symbolic date for Rondine, which on 10 December 2018 launched the Leaders for Peace campaign: a proposal presented to the United Nations and addressed to governments worldwide, calling for investment in the training of new peace leaders and the introduction of human rights education into national school curricula.