I’ll start by admitting that this course represents something very new for me as I’ve been used to different kind of courses which have very few to do with research issues.
Anyway, I found this work extremely interesting as I learnt to face something which might be unknown and hard at a first sight. Another important thing that this research has given me is the opportunity to work in a team: I’ve never been very good in group working, but this time I actually have to affirm that I’ve been very lucky because I found persons which are very patient and calm.
What this work is giving to me is maybe more than a deeper academic background about the research methods or about a given topic to analyze, but the chance to meet people that I would have never met in other ways. The first are my group mates: as I’m Italian, since I arrived I’ve been staying too much time with people coming from my country; this course has been a great opportunity for me to deepen my relations with locals.
In other words, what I’d like to highlight is the importance of the human aspect that grew during this course: I had the chance to analyze a topic which is extremely timely and also to meet persons who devoted their entire lives to other human beings, without giving anything in change but love.
I therefore discovered that an institution such as our university can give much more than an academic training or mere education, it yields us humanity.
While interviewing an activist with Ines, I looked at him in the eyes and I perceived a sincere feeling, I felt the passion that he has towards something in which he believes, and I had the same perception when I heard these words coming out his mouth “I love what I do”.
Meeting people who are in love with what they do gives me hope and makes me believe that good persons exist and are around us, the point is to find them, and thanks to this work I had the chance to meet some of them.
Alberto Pagani