UDU – From 0 to 100: we want it all!
Our generation is the zero from which to start. We have been repeating this in the squares throughout the last year. We shouted it in front of the headquarters of the Ministry of HE.
As Unione degli Universitari (UDU) and Rete degli Studenti Medi, we put together the discussions, ideas, and proposals of years of Student Union and constructed a Manifesto containing 100 proposals on social dimension, environment, work, mental health, and safe spaces. 100 proposals to demand change.
Our generation wants to react. From Zero to One Hundred is not just a slogan: it is what we want to do to build the future. Our country does not consider us, it does not intervene on essential and no longer postponable issues.
We have written this to ask for commitments from those running for Parliament in the 25 September general election. A signature to publicly declare their commitment to making Italy a fairer country, based on the proposals of us students.
We asked them to take sides by signing our Manifesto, publicly declaring that they will take charge of carrying those battles into the next Parliament. In recent weeks we have travelled around Italy to make these proposals known, and 136 candidates have decided to support them by signing our Manifesto. Now we want to see the facts in the next legislature.
Social dimension, environment, mental health, work and safe spaces must be the basis of Italy’s future. For years we’ve been in last place for investments in school and university education. Compared to the European average of 5%, Italy’s spending is only 3.8% of GDP. Investing in schools and universities is not impossible. It does not depend on a lack of funds, but simply on a lack of political will. It would be enough, in fact, to reallocate resources and provide for measures to recover lost revenue due to tax evasion, as already experienced in other European countries.
Even if the election result has decreed the victory of a far right-wing party, which in its programme declares that it wants to introduce a system of student loans, we will not give an inch. We are going to build policies on social dimension, environment, work, mental health, and to build safe spaces. We believe in an affirmative politics, capable of imagining something different and questioning power.
See you in schools, universities, squares and streets all over Italy!