The Study Center (CSSR) was established on Movimento Internazionale della Riconciliazione’s (MIR) and Movimento Nonviolento’s (MN) initiative in 1982. It is also the headquarter of MIR country-wide and the meeting place for the regional MIR-MN group.
“Be yourself the change that you want to see in the world”
– Gandhi
The CSSR is an Onlus-body fostering research programs, education and direct action in the field of political participation, nonviolent popular defense, peace & interculture education, nonviolent conflict transformation, development models, renewable power sources, sustainable territorial planning, organic architecture and environmentalism at large.
Domenico Sereno Regis (1921-84), after whose passing over the CSSR is named, was one of its founders and also the founder of GIOC (Christian Working Youth), as well as MIR president and leading spirit of the city’s spontaneous grassroot neighbourhood committees back in the 1970s.
The CSSR houses several other organizations as well (Idearom, Assefa, Esperanto, etc.) and features an important articulation:
– a multimedial library boasting over twenty thousand books, documents, magazines and audiovisuals;
– Pasquale Cavaliere Eco-institute, founded along with Piedmont’s Legambiente, ProNatura and WWF, acting in collaboration with university institutes and other research centers;
– Marilena Cardone Peace Education Group acting in various contexts (school, family, informal grouping) to spread nonviolent and conflict transformation culture.
MIR’s mother body IFOR (International Fellowship of Reconciliation) stemmed in 1914 from the rejection of war by a few Christians of different denominations; its Italian branch was set up in 1952 and it engaged straight away in the legal acknowledgement of conscientious objection to military service. It currently arranges campaigns and actions for peace and nonviolent conflict transformation, against war and for a more just and reconciled society.
1 minute along Via dei Mercanti