Closing Ceremony 2022

Dear students – “primi” and “secondi” as we say here in Duino – it is such a relief for me to see students finally attending this Closing Ceremony with their family members once again, and I am delighted to welcome all of them to our College.
Dear authorities, supporters and friends of UWC Adriatic, Dear teachers and members of staff, I am truly happy to be here with you all – perhaps less numerous than we hoped but quite a large crowd nonetheless – to celebrate this special occasion.

And today’s occasion is very special indeed, because owing to this event of ours we have also had the pleasure of welcoming to Duino Dr. Musimbi Kanyoro, Chair of the UWC International Board, who will be our Keynote Speaker today. We have been waiting for this opportunity for quite some time, but the circumstances of the last few years had made it impossible up to now. Dr Kanyoro has an outstanding personal and professional record as a leader of organisations involved in health, development and human rights. Born and raised in Kenya, she has always been extremely active – starting from the time of her high school studies in Nairobi and her university studies in linguistics and theology in Kenya and the US – in the struggle for civil rights and the abolition of apartheid in South Africa. Over time she has become especially active in women’s empowerment – particularly on the African continent – and in health and family planning issues. This has led her to hold several noteworthy positions, notably in the not-for-profit sector, two of which I will now mention by way of example: she was the first African woman appointed World Secretary General of the Young Women’s Christian Association/YWCA (1998-2007), and was CEO of the Global Fund for Women from 2011 to 2019. Since January 1st 2019, she has Chaired the UWC International Board and therefore leads the internal and external strategy of the UWC Movement.

I am pleased to say that the Academic Year that is ending today has been – at long last – almost normal. Particularly from January onwards, you students have been able to explore the outside world once again, and thus have lived your UWC Adriatic experience to its full potential. It has given me much joy to see you once again gather in small groups in piazza to catch the bus to Trieste… Our first-years, who arrived in Duino last August for the first time, cannot make any comparisons, while second-years, who have gone through the 2020/21 Academic Year in Duino, definitely noticed and fully appreciated the change.  

You have therefore been able to actively participate in many events and learning opportunities in contact with the outside world. I will merely mention a few: Project Week, finally no longer confined to Duino; the inauguration of the Giulio Regeni Garden of the Righteous; the visits of so many donors and their meetings with those of you who are their scholars; the Volunteering Fair; the months dedicated to Black History and the history of the struggle for women’s rights; your active engagement on specific issues, ranging from the fight against climate change to that for the rights of the LGBTQ community. The tragic events which are sadly still ongoing in Central and Eastern Europe drove you to demonstrate repeatedly against the invasion of Ukraine and to find ways to support refugees arriving in Italy, some of whom we have also hosted at the College as they transited through this region. And, on a lighter note, cultural trips to visit the rest of Italy, like Rome and Venice, have finally been resumed. 

In short, we have once again had an academic year full of stimuli, and I am thrilled with how proactively you have responded to them – as UWC Adriatic students invariably do. 

Of course, none of this could have happened quite in the same way without the fundamental endeavors of all who work at the College: your teachers, first and foremost, the administrative staff, the maintenance and cleaning staff, the medical staff – Sandra, how many swabs did you do this year? – and our dear “Mensa ladies” who watch over you like your mothers would: Alba, Angela, Barbara, Elena, Marina, Raica, Sonia senior and Sonia junior. They know what each and every one of you students enjoys eating (and this goes for us adults too, for that matter), advise you on what is best for you and cheer you up when you need it, knowing full well that food not only provides nourishment for the body but also, at times, consolation for the spirit. 

To each and every one of our staff members I say thank you, from the bottom of my heart. 

Yet a complex institution like our College would not have fared as well as it did without the authoritative, thoughtful, far-sighted, courageous and wise leadership of Will Turner, our Rettore. To him go our and my personal, deepest thanks and our very best wishes. Indeed, Will is leaving us at the end of this Academic Year to return home, to the UK, driven by family reasons, where a new school awaits him. To mention just one of his many outstanding achievements, it is thanks to Will that during the pandemic UWC Adriatic was able to deliver its UWC education in person to its students at all times, except for merely three months in the 2019/20 Academic Year. This was a remarkable achievement. Even in a difficult year like the 2020/21 academic year, students were able to live in Duino together, and unless our students can live and learn together and share everything, even the hardest of times, we all know that a real UWC experience cannot be had. Many thanks to you Will then, and to you, Annabel and Stella go our very best wishes for your return home, although I hope you will continue to regard Duino as your second home, since Stella was born in Monfalcone at the very beginning of the pandemic. 

As of August of this year the new UWC Adriatic Rettore will be Khalid el-Metaal, who is among us today and whom the students, faculty and staff members met during the selection process last autumn. A very warm welcome to him, and best wishes for his new professional adventure: he knows that he will be able to count on the utmost cooperation and support from the entire Adriatic community, starting with myself. 

My thanks and best wishes also go to the staff members – both teachers and administrative staff – who are leaving us, either permanently or just for a while, at the end of this Academic Year: Rodrigo Calcagni, Maria Canfora, Pablo Martinez Rosado, Magda Michalska, Paola Nodari, Viviana Pace, Honor Poulton e Chiara Vidoni.   Thank you very much for your endeavors and best wishes to you all. 

For those of you attending this ceremony for the first time, a traditional part of this event is the presentation of the prizes to the best student of Italian as a foreign language at each of the three levels taught at this College. Aside from being very curious to hear the names of the winners, I would like to thank the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and Fondazione CRTrieste who have provided the prizes. Both institutions have once again stood firmly and generously by the College’s side in 2022 – and not merely with this prize.

But I am not quite through with my expressions of gratitude. I would like to warmly and publicly thank all those who allow the College to continue to operate and grow and who generously provide the College’s venues and cooperate with us at many levels: the Region Friuli Venezia Giulia, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, the Municipality of Duino Aurisina, our public and private donors, and the College’s numerous friends. Without all of you, UWC Adriatic would not be the same.

To our secondi, as you leave Duino and head for the outside world –  whether to go to university, for a gap year or other ventures – I trust that UWC Adriatic and Duino, will remain forever in your hearts. I am confident that the life-changing experiences you have been through over these two years – including your initial difficulties in settling down, the challenges posed by the pandemic, the long Duino winters and the tension caused by exams – will have forged you for life and that you can now truly become agents of positive change in the world, each in your own way but always inspired by the UWC values –  something that the world out there clearly needs very much. Good luck, to you secondi, and come back soon!

As for you, primi, I wish you a much-needed well-deserved summer vacation, and hope you will return in August full of energy and ready for the challenging second year that awaits you. I also hope that over the summer you will have the opportunity to absorb the many, extraordinary novelties of your first year, perhaps also sharing them with family, friends and peers back at home. Arrivederci and see you again in August!

The next Academic Year will mark the College’s 40th anniversary, as UWC Adriatic began its activities in the 1982/83 Academic Year. Since then – including this year’s graduating class – 3,717 students have attended our College. Each and every one of them has lived a life-changing experience here, learning what international understanding is all about – something that seems even more important today, in these dark times marked once again, after over 70 years, by a war on the European continent. 

I conclude by sharing with you the words of the philosopher Mauro Ceruti, winner of the last Nonino Prize that I read a few days ago. Ceruti pits against today’s prevailing model of conflictual globalisation – made up of bubbles that neither communicate nor cooperate – the paradigm of solidarity, based on the awareness of our shared future as creatures belonging to the same planet, and, he adds, never before have culture and education played such an essential role in raising this awareness.

This seems to me to be the goal and the meaning of the two years at UWC Adriatic for our students: to experience and understand that this feeling of sharing a common, planetary sense of belonging is real, works and sums up what the United World Colleges are all about.

With this message – so relevant for us all and which I hope our students will uphold throughout their lives – I thank you for your attention and give the floor to Musimbi Kanyoro.

I am grateful to have been invited by the Board and Management team to share this momentous occasion with the UWC Adriatic community of students, teachers, staff, parents, donors & all those invested in the school.
Of course, a day of graduation is one of celebration- so, bravo graduating class of 2022!

Thank you for giving us the excuse to gather in person after nearly two years of playing hide and seek with the COVID-19 pandemic. We are here to congratulate you on your achievements – for the hard work you have shown in meeting the rigorous academic requirements of the IB, for excelling in your outdoor activities, social and civic engagements. For the passion and commitment you have shown whether that be in sports, in the arts, in technology or wherever else your interests lie. But, we are also here to set you on your onward journey, which your time at UWC Adriatic has been preparing you for.

This school has given you knowledge, experience and life skills to help you realise your potential. If you value what you have received, and believe in yourself, you can face your onward future with courage and humility. Courage makes us inspired to face each day with new inspiration and hope that we shall succeed in the plans ahead of us. Humility helps us to accept our vulnerability and to forgive ourselves, and others, when we fail, making us willing to pick ourselves up and learn from our experiences of both success and failure. The ultimate aspiration of UWC education is to set students on a journey to becoming responsible global citizens. Responsible human beings are not perfect; they make mistakes. But, they put every commitment toward achieving common good for all those that share our one planet.
So, are you ready?

Many of you will know the UWC mission statement by heart, to make education a force to unite people, nations and cultures for peace and a sustainable future. And as I look around at the faces of students here today, I find myself asking the silent question in my head “which of
them will have been captured by this vision of our founders?” But what does it mean to be a force for peace, in a world where war is still a reality? Well, I turn to late Kenyan born Professor Wangari Maathai for help on this matter. She said: “Peace is more than the absence of armed conflict. Peace is the commitment to equality and justice; a democratic world free of physcial, economical, cultural, political, religious, sexual and environemtnal violence and the constant threat of these forms of violence against women – indeed against all of humanity.”

It is clear that this is challenging work, and rightly so. In Singapore recently, UWC International’s Executive Director, Faith Abiodun, said a UWC education is designed to be “challenging, but not to break the students.” As the world begins to emerge from the global
pandemic, defining a new social contract for education is more urgent than ever. And who better to provide the data for this than those of you who have had to test remote learning, who have had to rely on technology, and who have had to apply high levels of discipline to
learning? UWC has always recognised education as a foundation for peace, and in your time at UWC Adriatic you will have had opportunities to understand what it means to live by a shared set of values. To learn about tolerance and forgiveness, to settle conflicts through
negotiation, to respect other people’s lives, property and rights. To embrace moral purpose, to practice forgiveness, to take risks even if it doesn’t always work out in the way you expect.
So, let’s go then!

UWC schools seek to make you lifetime learners, and that is what is needed in this ever-changing era of information technology. But that doesn’t just require technical skills, it also requires competence in building relationships. You have first-hand experience of what it means to embrace diversity, to fight for the rights of others, to ensure that all voices are heard, particularly those that have been historically marginalised. So use your agency to
advocate, to lead, to look for the opportunities to bring about positive change in your place of work, within your family and within your communities.

Take your UWC experience with you, and build on it in whatever you choose to do next. Remember that you are now part of a global community of more than 60,000 alumni spread across the world, in every possible sector you can think of. Use that network, and nurture those connections.

We are rooting for you Graduating Class of 2022 – Congratulations and good luck!

Good morning graduating second-year students, first-year students, parents, esteemed guests and College staff. Good morning, good afternoon and good evening to parents, relatives and all others connected to the College who are watching this Closing Ceremony online today from all over the world. This ceremony celebrates the graduation of the academic cohort 2020-22 and represents the end of their time here in Duino.  We are here to celebrate their achievements, what they have learned, how they have developed as young people and to wish them well as they leave our College to embark on the next chapter of their lives.

As all of us here today are aware the whole world has been engulfed by difficulties, hardships and tragedies due to the pandemic and for much of the past two years there was no escaping this in Duino.  Our community has had to face numerous challenges that the pandemic has brought our way and more recently the global impact from the war in Ukraine.  It has not been an easy experience and the 2020-21 academic year was particularly difficult when Italy faced significant lockdowns and restrictions that limited what we could do at the College.  I am sure, too, that it has been an anxious time for the families of our students.  Nonetheless, the College and its wider community has got through the worst of the pandemic, and, more importantly, there is much to be grateful for and to celebrate from this year and the two years our leaving generation have completed here in Duino.

It is important that I start my speech today by thanking all the people and organisations that have made this academic year possible. UWC Adriatic exists for its students and for the UWC mission, and thanks to the constant commitment of our teachers, administrative staff and many supporting agencies outside the college we have been able to deliver a fulfilling UWC education this year.  The teaching staff have given a great deal to their students and to the College to deliver an engaging and varied educational experience to our students when many young people across the world have faced much reduced schooling experiences due to the pandemic.  The administrative, maintenance and mensa staff have ensured that this busy boarding school runs effectively and efficiently.  And I am particularly grateful to the medical team, especially Sandra Colnago, as they above all have been in the front line when it comes to supporting and caring for students and staff in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic.  As Rettore, I am incredibly grateful to all of our staff for everything they have done and would like to take a moment to applaud them all.

I would also like to give my sincere thanks on behalf of the College to the people and institutions of Italy for their continued generosity in supporting UWC Adriatic.  As ever, we remain particularly grateful to the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region for our buildings that are the students’ homes, and the significant number of scholarships they gave to students from countries around the world, especially those in states of tension and conflict – as well as from the FVG region.

Other students are here on full scholarships due to the generosity of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Others of you are fully funded by the activities of your own National Committees; by donations from UWC alumni and other contributors to the college Annual Fund; and there are those of you sponsored by different foundations and corporate or individual donors. Many of you also receive pocket money each year through the generous sponsorship of the Premio alla Bontà Hazel Marie Cole. The concept of donating to or in the case of alumni giving back to the College is a fundamental part of the UWC mission.  It is therefore essential that those of you leaving Duino this year always remember this generosity and think about how, in the future, you can aim to be as generous as those who have provided you with the chance to be a student here in Duino.  There may even be family members here now who wish to consider donating towards scholarship funds.
Today is also an opportunity for the College to say some farewells to staff leaving at the end of this academic year.

Chiara Vidoni joined the College in 2014.  Chiara was originally seconded to the College by the Italian Ministry of Education and began her career here teaching Italian.  She later became Director of the International Community Music Academy and in that time has done a great deal to push music forwards at the College.  I am particularly grateful for her efforts over the last two years.  They have certainly not been straightforward in terms of musical performance, but she has found ways to ensure students have been able to continue with their one-on-one music lessons and more recently has helped with the return of music concerts at the College.  She will now return to Udine to work full time at the Collegio Uccellis. 

Rodrigo Calcagni was a student in Duino from 2006 to 2008 and then returned to Duino as the teacher of economics in 2019.  Rodrigo is a great lover of the outdoors and has contributed enormously to cross-country skiing, climbing, bouldering and other outdoor activities.  He now moves to Sweden to be with his partner Cecilia.

Magda Michalska was also a student in Duino, studying here from 2012 to 2014.  She came back to the College for the 2019-20 academic year to teach world arts and cultures as a maternity cover.  She then returned a term later to cover another maternity role and has remained working at the College since then whilst also completing a Masters Degree in International Education.  In that time, she has also taught English and Italian as well contributing a great deal to the social service programme.

Paola Nodari joined us in 2020 as the purchasing coordinator.  She has overseen some very positive changes to our procurement procedures in that time, as well using her strong legal background to help negotiate new contracts the College has with various providers.  Paola leaves the College to work in local administration for the Comune.

Honor Poulton leaves us after a year working in a graduate role as Education Programme Assistant.  Honor has helped tremendously in the fundraising and communications teams, as well as being involved in the College’s sustainability strategy and university counselling.  She will return to the UK to work in London. 

I would therefore like us to take a moment to applaud those members of staff leaving today to thank them for all their contributions while working here. 

We also say arrivederci to Pablo Martinez Rosado, Maria Canfora and Viviana Pace who are on leave next year or in Viviana’s case next term.  We wish them well for their time away from the College and look forward to their return.
Now it is time for me to talk about our leaving students – i secondi.  You arrived in Duino in August 2020 and your first year was not an easy one.  You started with days of quarantine in local hotels, faced Covid isolations at the College, a reduced activities programme at school due to government restrictions and many restrictions on what you could and could not do.  You remained committed though and despite the difficulties the restrictions and the pandemic brought, you persevered, and you rose to the personal challenges that you faced.  Overcoming these challenges will have taught you a lot about yourselves and will have prepared you well for further adversity in the future, which you most certainly will face.  Thankfully, this year has seen fewer challenges.  As the pandemic has eased in recent months, Italy has lifted its restrictions allowing you to perform in plays, musicals and concerts, and to travel out of Duino freely.  This has led to a much more normal feeling to life and has meant that your two years really are finishing on a high note having been able to experience a very fulfilling second year here.

I think it is important for me to reflect on what you have gained over your two years here and I am drawn to a story a friend of mine told me.  Before telling the story, I want to apologise if there is anybody here from the US state of Tennessee as the story involves two people from there and by no means do I mean any disrespect to people from Tennessee by telling this story.  My friend was fortunate enough to go on holiday to the Caribbean island of Antigua.  He went to a restaurant one evening to have dinner on a terrace outside below a beautiful clear starry sky with a bright full moon shining down upon him and his wife.  On the table next to him were a retired couple from Tennessee called George and Sally whose table was close enough that they could hear each other’s conversations.  After a quiet moment on both their tables, Sally said to her husband looking up at the sky “George, is that the same moon we see in Tennessee?”  Thinking for a moment, George replied, “You know Sally, my dear, I don’t know.”

I have long reflected on this story since I heard it a few years ago and as an educator the concept of knowledge and learning is at the centre of my role as Rettore.  When I think of this story and of you secondi leaving today it makes me wonder what did you not know when you got here.  (I am hoping, of course, you all knew the moon you have seen in your own country is in almost all likelihood the same moon you see in Duino.)  However, there will have been many things you did not know before coming here.  You may also have thought certain things when you first arrived here, your understanding or views on which have now changed due to your experiences at the College.  In the classroom and in your activities, you will have gained knowledge and learnt new skills all of which is, of course, very important but what is more important is what you have learnt about who you are as a person.  Living and studying at a College like this one for two years is an incredibly rich experience and, in many ways, you will be far better prepared for the next chapter of your lives than your peers back home because of your two years in Duino.  You have lived away from home away from family and friends, you have had to step up to the challenges of an intense UWC educational programme, you have questioned many things with and from each other, and you have asked many questions of yourselves.  You have also done all of this in the worst pandemic to hit the globe for over a century. 

So, when you have left Duino and you have a quiet moment to yourself in the coming weeks or months, I suggest you think about these three questions.
The first is, what have you learnt about yourself?  I can confidently say you are much stronger and much more resilient after two years here than you will think.  So count all the different challenges you have overcome in two years here and think about how you did that.  As Kurt Hahn, said “there is more in you than you think” and I hope you can reflect on how you found more in yourselves over these last two years than you thought was there.  

My second question for you to ask yourselves is, what have you learnt about others?  You have been plunged into an environment here for two years with many other nationalities, religions, cultures, backgrounds, values and opinions.  This has given you an amazingly rich international experience and my hope is that it has taught you that there are many differing views and people in this world but there is a common humanity among us all.  The importance of humanity is what drew you here in the first place and your now deeper understanding of it should allow you to listen to others better, to understand others better and to be better placed to collaborate with others to be a positive change maker in the future.

My third and final question I want you to ask yourselves is what are your values? Values evolve throughout life and at 18 or 19 years of age your values will still be developing but I want you to think about what really matters to you.  I hope, of course, that many of your values align strongly with our UWC values. But when you reflect on this in your own time you may find your values may be different to when you arrived here (in some cases really very different).  I feel strongly though that those values must be a guiding light for you as you navigate your way through the wonderful maze of life.  So, think carefully about your own values and even write them down and pin them up somewhere you see them every day.  It might seem a strange thing to suggest but I promise you, you will be a stronger person for it.

So, what comes next?  Well, we currently live in uncertain and uneasy times.  That does not mean you should be fearful though as previous generations who have lived through times of adversity in their younger years are often more resilient and adaptable than those who have faced fewer challenges.  You can continue to share our UWC values with others, to be compassionate, to help others and to try to make the world a better place.  Importantly, whatever comes your way you understand the concept of personal responsibility, you celebrate diversity, and you care for other people.  If you put this together with everything you have learned, I have no doubt you will all thrive beyond this College. 

I therefore wish you all the very best wherever you go and in whatever you do. Thank you.

Billionaire playboy philanthropist Tony Stark, in that not very well-known movie Avengers Endgame once said, “Part of the journey is the end.” We’re gathered here today not only as an acknowledgment of our secondi getting out of the pit, but also as a celebration of the journey they’ve taken to make it here. Good morning to all of the teachers, administrative staff, parents, Joni, our Rettore Weeell, and of course, our beloved secondi. If we haven’t had the chance to meet, I’m Red, your primo from the Philippines, and it has been my greatest pleasure knowing you all.

My third, fourth, and somehow also my 14th years weren’t lying when they said that your time in UWC passes quickly. Here I am, saying goodbye to you when it only feels like it’s been a split second. I haven’t even had the chance to forget exactly which secondi I sat with for lunch in Fore Lawn on that sunny first day.

But that’s the magic of it, right? We’re here for a moment, a magical, beautiful, fleeting, one, yes, but it is just a moment in our lives. I can’t get Math HL out of my head (I’ve tried), so just indulge me for a second: each one of our lives is a straight line on a 2D XY plane, and this moment was our intersection (none of our lines are parallel, of course)—through thick and thin, through COVID regulations and quarantines, through the best of times and even just through begging someone to find Anthony on the Both Generations group chat. Our lives have intersected, and secondi, with the vast infinity of the Cartesian plane in front of you, this line segment can’t wait to see where your path takes you. Okay, the analogy kinda fell apart at the end there but you get it.

With all that looms ahead, I imagine it is daunting. This is the moment when all our teachers and parents let you know that “The future belongs to you.” And it does. This weight on your shoulders is one you now get to realize your duty to fully carry. But you know what also belongs to you? We, your primi, do. Just as you’ll always have a home in Duino, us primi (now secondi) will always have a place for you, metaphorically and likely physically as well. From the moment that any of you get on the G51, from the second you get to Trieste Bus Station, from the first time I hear Momoko’s laugh from a mile away, we’ll be ready to welcome you.

You know I was always sceptical of people that said that high school is the best time of your life. But now I understand, and I’m almost certain your primi believe that you’ve made a magnificent case to prove that statement right.

This is the part where I get a bit sentimental. In the grand scale of the universe, we’ve only been together for a moment. One just as fleeting as the rest of them throughout our lives. But for me, this one was different. This may have been only one moment, but this one has been a blast. I do not think that there is one of us who was not impacted by one of you in one way or another. We’ve laughed and cried, faced adversity like no other, hypothesized about Mark’s age (how old is this man?), and watched Daniel ask if anyone wanted kebab every single day, together. And as I stand before you, our generation seeing your generation for one last time together, I can’t help but be grateful, that of every possible combination of people from every single part of the world, you guys are the ones we got. 

I am truly blessed to be able to say goodbye to you like this. As much as it is sad seeing you go, I can’t help but realize how grateful I am that we got the chance to meet you in the first place. Famous street poet and honey enthusiast Winnie the Pooh says it best, “How lucky am I to have something so special, that makes saying goodbye so hard.”

How lucky we truly have been. It’s been a ride, secondi. Grazie tante, e ci vediamo!

Life is a journey in time and space, and I would like to share with you a bit of how our time went by, in our place. It’s actually quite difficult to explain to people who haven’t lived in Duino how time works here. I’ve been trying to find the right words for two years, but it never quite works. I believe time here is especially hard to understand because this place lives through generational change, year after year it carries the signs of the people it was a home to.

For now, this is the best way I found to describe it: imagine yourself falling asleep just before the morning, and dreaming of something incredible. Then your alarm goes off, fifteen minutes later – in my case it’s a dog barking very loudly, coming from my roommate’s phone.
You wake up before you even had the time to enjoy the experience. The dream has gone by in what seems to be an instant, yet it was so intense that you almost feel like you’ve been dreaming for a couple of hours.

That’s how it felt on my second day when I learned, together with my roommates on Scholz’s topfloor, that leaving the skylights open, no matter how sunny, meant that we would come back to a pool.

That’s how it felt when, during our first weeks we all gathered in Porto with music, enjoying the warmth, because we didn’t know what Bora was yet. We barely knew one another, but we trust-jumped into each other’s arms, and soon we were a united generation, peers that had met ages ago.

That’s how it felt when we spent hours under the sun in Fore Lawn, enjoying the peace that this place holds, especially when we had to constantly dodge bouncing balls and frisbees – there were a couple of people who took the game a little too seriously.

That’s how it felt when we hiked in Carso dressed in its autumn leaves, when time stopped as we sat on top of our very tall mountains, and we saw how beautiful Duino is, from above.

That’s how it felt like in April, when we celebrated the end of term for our second years in Cernizza, all together for the last time, when we had to say goodbye with tears in our eyes, waving at the vans as our best friends drove away.

That’s how it felt when we met our first years in Piazza; we had become older siblings, when in fact we still felt like “Duino newborns”. Despite being a bit lost, we took our mentorship very seriously, and the new members of our family by hand, ready to share our incomprehensible dream with them.

It felt like that when I was attacked by a jellyfish on the way to Fore beach, when I had the funniest and deepest conversations, sitting on a very comfortable rock along the Rilke Path.

Generation of 2022, you know I could go on for ages, recall every small memory, even the ones that can’t be mentioned, and it still wouldn’t be enough to truly encompass what Duino is.

The truth is that the past couple of years have been… interesting, and however basic you may think this word is, I really mean it in all of its nuances. They have been wonderful… and hard. To quote Dante, and a wise friend, at some point we all got lost in a dark forest. Most of us are now legally adults, but I can assure all of the real adults in this marquee that in these moments we don’t always feel so grownup, and it’s ok. However, I believe everything is relative: in our time, in our space here, we grew up together, we all got a little bit – or I should say a lot – closer to the best versions of ourselves; we found comfort in that forest, and took paths that can lead us to its brightest parts. Thank you to everyone who contributes to its beauty, to all of those who plant, and entrust the seedlings to the generations to come; thank you to those who’ve been watching them grow ever since they were planted. Thank you to those who nurture the flowers when they bloom, and allow the rain to pour, patiently waiting for the sun to shine again, knowing that both stages are needed for the forest to grow even stronger. Thank you to those who eradicate the weeds.

Last year, when my second year was standing here he said that what makes Duino so special to all of us is the people – and I couldn’t agree more. The connections we make for life become our wandering home, that platonic space that makes us realise that the world isn’t that big and scary after all, and most importantly, that we have a sofa to count on wherever we go. A few days ago, I was talking to a friend about a fear I have: with all this constant movement that many of us are familiar with, I was worried about losing my sense of home. However, she made me realise that the definition of home doesn’t have to be that restrictive – “home is where your people are” or “home is where you feel comfortable going to the toilet”. I think home is something we all make for ourselves, within ourselves, a collection of our best experiences, encounters and favourite spots. It’s ok if it’s a bit messy – and I’m not saying that only because I’ve learned to live with an incredibly messy roommate.

To me, all of this is represented by Duino, and it always will.

I had a very hard time accepting that it’s time to go, but the thing is that this isn’t really the end, it’s more of a beginning.

The only certain thing is that the past couple of years taught us a very important lesson: sometimes there is beauty in uncertainty, in discovering the new, in adapting and exploring.

For as long as I have been here I have found comfort in the train that runs through Carso, often the only noise we hear around this huge metropolis. I have no clue where it’s going, but I know at some point it will reach its destination.
After all, we’ve seen how beautiful Duino is from pictures and postcards before coming, we’ve seen it from within, and even from the top of Carso. Now it’s time to take that train, and admire our piece of home from far away in space, and from close-up in our hearts.