The mission

The Mediterraid 2007 will repeat as it does every year its tour of the Mediterranean area by car. It will leave on 2nd May and it will end on the 30th of June 2007. The mission of the initiative is to get together "the voices of the Mediterranean area" reporting the voices of the common people during its everyday life. We’ll realize interviews, video documentaries, photo services and press articles to document, above all, the habits and the thoughts of the people during everyday life. We’ll meet besides culture and religion experts as well as members of local governments as we did during the tour in 2006.

Videos

During Mediterraid 2007 we’ll realize a video regarding the "Mediterranean Man". We’ll investigate also certains aspects that above others are common to the peoples of the area like gestures, music, cooking and architecture. A second video will be about the eight objects of the Millennium Declaration of the United Nations applied to eight different Countries of the mediterranean area.

The flag of respect

The staff Mediterraid during the tour of 2006 took along the "Flag of Friendship", a flag with a sentence in different languages taken out from the Declaration of Rights of the United Nations "It’s essential to promote the development of friendly relations among the Countries". During Mediterraid 2007 the staff will take along the "flag of Respect" with the sentence taken out from the Declaration of the Millennium of the U.N.: "human beings must respect each other, with all their differences in opinions, cultures and languages".

Coming back

The Mediterraid 2007 will come back to some places visited in 2006 and will show through a projector and a mobile screen the images taken last year. For that, we’ll organize meetings and discussions in schools and public places where we’ll show the videos. We’ll present the schools and the involved institutions with two DVD’s: one with images taken on place last year and the other concerning Italy in general and the meaning of the initiative Mediterraid. That will represent a sign of continuity in the friendship that’s been established between local populations and the staff Mediterraid come from Italy to know and to be known.

Logistics

The travel will be done on a vehicle fit for up to seven passengers. Five passengers will make the entire tour and they will be a general coordinator, a production secretary, a photographer, a journalist and a cameraman. In the vehicle two places will be left to give hospitality in each Country to one or two local persons.

The association

The association Mediterraid was born in October 2004 on the initiative of Antonello Fratoddi, today President, and of other people believing in this project. It’s a no-profit organization and its social aim is promoting friendship and knowledge among the peoples of the mediterranean area. To reach this aim the staff performs every year a motor tour going along the entire coastline of the Mediterranean Sea, running through all the countries facing the sea.

On-line diary

During the Mediterraid 2007, as already done in 2006, we’ll keep an on-line diary published and updated every day on the website http://www.mediterraid.it . Every day the report, the impressions and the sensations will be described also through photographs published real-time on the website.

Project SCHOOL 2007

In 2006 we visited the school of Kasme in the Syrian desert presenting, with the help of "Bambini nel deserto" Onlus backpacks, excercise-books, pens and crayons. After our come back in Rome, we received a letter from the school of Kasme asking other things for us very cheap as tracksuits as well as trainers shoes. We’ll go back in 2007 to Kasme to show to the children what we shoot there last year and to give tracksuits as well as trainers shoes. These things have been bought with the help of the children of the school of Anguillara (near Rome) in order to establish a kind of friendship with the children of Kasme, that they have known thanks to the shoot of 2006. In exchange for that, Syrian pupils will present to the italian children a big drawing.