Active Nonviolence Festival

A festival to build peace, not just talk about it

The Active Nonviolence Festival began in Rome as a single-day meeting and has gradually transformed into a broader, more structured event. Promoted by Energia per i Diritti Umani APS, the festival proposes an interpretation of nonviolence not as a simple absence of conflict, but as an active method: a concrete way to intervene in the causes of violence, from the language of migration to the war economy, from the environmental crisis to educational relationships.

The venue is the Extralibera space, at Via Stamira 5, in the Municipality of Rome, just a few steps from Piazza Bologna and a short distance from the San Lorenzo district, the historic heart of the capital's Lazio region for associations and university life. It is a setting that gives the festival its unique character: not an event imposed from above, but an initiative rooted in a fabric of schools, universities, volunteer organizations, and active citizenship.

Thematic panels: five directions of work

The festival's structure revolves around in-depth panels, each designed as an open discussion between speakers, associations, and the public. There are five recurring themes:

• Migration — how to manage migratory flows by moving beyond the rhetoric of emergency and freeing language from stereotypes.
• Peace and disarmament — tools and paths to move away from the war economy and the culture of violence.
• Women and nonviolence — nonviolence as a practice of peace and liberation, in a dialogue between plural subjectivities.
• Environment and conflict — climate crisis, environmental justice, and their connection to ongoing wars.
• Nonviolent education — the role of the educational community among schools, relationships, and social commitment.

Eirenefest: the books of peace

Within the festival, there is space for Eirenefest, the book festival for peace and nonviolence: presentations, meetings with authors, and independent publishers who have been working for years on the themes of human rights, disarmament, and memory. It is the "slower" part of the program, the one that allows you to take home something lasting after two intense days of debate.

Not just debate: workshops, art, and children

Alongside the panels, the program includes creative workshops designed for children, screenings, and artistic moments. The workshop dedicated to children starts with a shared reading and invites them to imagine and represent a journey, thus introducing them to the theme of migration with a symbolic and non-didactic language. It is one of the most successful aspects of the event: nonviolence is treated as a skill to be exercised at any age, not as a subject for experts only.

An event part of an international network

The festival is not an isolated episode. It connects to the World March for Peace and Nonviolence, an international mobilization that crosses dozens of countries in its editions, connecting cities, groups, and initiatives committed to building a culture of peace. Rome is one of the stops on this journey, and the festival represents its Roman moment of collective reflection.

Why it is worth attending

Those looking for a spectacular festival will find something different: a sober, free event built on listening and discussion. But that is precisely its quality. In a city that hosts major cultural events, the Active Nonviolence Festival maintains a sense of proximity that truly allows you to talk with the speakers, to intervene, and to leave with contacts rather than just notes. For those involved in schools, cooperation, the third sector, or who simply want to better understand the conflicts of the present, it is an appointment that deserves two autumn days.