The path followed by the manifesto of non-hostile communication is in itself the success. To date they have reached more than 100,000 children/students and 30,000 teachers.

But although they had this enormous success in schools, it wasn’t shared by the campaigns that did to convince politicians to change the way they communicate. Only the mayors of Turin and Milan have signed the non-hostile communication manifesto. However, Tiziana is sure that this is a sign that ice is breaking and others will follow.

She considers that her work is not void of stress and the solution to it is to deal with it as a team. Her colleagues and herself are showing constant mutual support among each other.

In schools, Tiziana and her colleagues tried to tell the little ones how to deal with and how to prevent the language of hatred. They did a translation, a rewriting of their poster for children, with a simpler language and with basic concepts that took up the ten points of the original manifesto. For example, principle 5 says that “words are a bridge” there are words that make people laugh and do good, and that make us feel good when we say them. Likewise, hate speech generates pain and suffering.

The language we use and that we have become accustomed to using has become very frail. Even in face-to-face conversations it is now possible to use very aggressive tones. The most aggressive examples are mostly present online, because of the screen, but now also offline is common. Tiziana believe that this should be pointed out to people, not only within one’s group of friends and family, but also trivially in the supermarket.

The thing that keeps her going is the conviction that, through constant, continuous and long-lasting educational courses, she and her colleagues can and will succeed in acquiring the right awareness to face and then reduce hate speech. They have already noticed that the new generations are getting used to managing hate situations more and more often. It is a long way ahead and it requires constant perseverance and commitment, but improvements can be made.

Tiziana believes that responding to and curbing hatred is difficult and that considerable stress must be borne. Even if the non-hostile messages are much larger in numbers than messages of hatred, non-hostility is more silent, it is more discreet. Those who want to engage often do so silently, not visibly. As for the people who want to engage more actively, she suggests finding the “bridge words”. Sometimes, when these words are not found, we must communicate with silence.

She thinks one can’t adopt strategies to avoid being at risk because being a target is not a decision, so it’s difficult to prevent. One can try to elaborate measures but the truth is that there are no techniques, and the responsibility lies with the aggressor, not the victim.

Fighint extremism takes a lot of patience. This is an ethical problem, which goes beyond having busy schedules or low economic possibilities. Like any ethical problem, if we recognize its importance we find the time to face it. We must work on awareness, first of all.