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Giovanni Ermiglia

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Giovanni Ermiglia (24 June 1905 – 14 January 2004) was an Italian nonviolent activist.

Giovanni Ermiglia
Born(1905-06-24)24 June 1905
Sanremo, Italy
Died14 January 2004(2004-01-14) (aged 98)
Sanremo, Italy
Nationality Italien italian
Occupation(s)teacher and nonviolent activist.

Biography

Education and early career

Ermiglia obtained his high-school diploma from the Liceo Classico Cassini[1] in Sanremo. He received a degree in Jurisprudence from the University of Genova and also a philosophy qualification from the University of Turin.[2]

In Piedmont he spent time with local intellectuals and started dating Lalla Romano, a well known poet who wrote several poems for him. These works were later collated in Poesie per Giovanni, a book published in 2007 which also included some previously unpublished texts.[3]

Back in Liguria, Ermiglia left aside his forensic work and became a philosophy teacher.[2] In the late 1960s he took part in the debate about the role of monasticism in the Western society which followed the publication of Thomas Merton's essay The contemplative and the atheist. Ermiglia, even if from an atheist point of view, supported the idea that monks were not compromised with the most questionable aspects of Catholic church temporal power.[4]

Charity work in India

In 1969, during a trip in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, he met Shri J. Loganathan and other activists of Bhoodan, a movement founded during the 1950s by Vinoba Bhave which aimed to better distribute land ownership through voluntary donations. Vinoba walked across India for 14 years collecting 4,193,579 acres of land (around 1,700,000 hectares). Unfortunately much of this land was dry and/or had been long abandoned, and its new users were very poor and unable to afford new crops.

Ermiglia had the idea to collect money in Italy in order to help some of these peasant families manage their land effectively. The action obtained a good audience around Italy leading to the founding of various groups of activists supporting the Indian Sarva Seva Farms (literally "farms at the service of everybody"), with the local groups implementing Bhoodan at a grassroot level.[5] In these first years of activity Ermiglia was also supported by Movimento Sviluppo e Pace and SERMIG, two NGOs in North West Italy respectively lead by Giorgio Ceragioli and Ernesto Olivero.[6]

Ermiglia's commitment for Sarva Seva Farms increased and he spent a lot of time in India up to 1990s. In 1995 the Italian groups of Bhoodan supporters were unified in ASSEFA Italia, a national NGO which was officially recognised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2002. As well as ASSEFA, Ermiglia sometimes also represented Movimento Sviluppo e Pace in India.[7][8]

Later life and death

In his late years a long illness slowed Ermiglia's activity, which was left to several friends and collaborators. The work of ASSEFA, which at first was limited to farming Tamil Nadu and South-India, slowly spread through the country and differentiated encompassing other activities such as education, microgranting[9] and improving the situation of women. In 2015 the NGO was providing services to around one million of households living in 10,000 villages.[10]

Ermiglia died in 2004 in Sanremo, his hometown. In his will he left his belongings to the Livia Rubino e Giovanni Ermiglia foundation, established in order to continue his activity.[2]

Awards

  • Premio Artigiano della pace (Artisan of Peace award, granted by the SERMIG) – 1984.[5]
  • Deferder of Peace award – Madurai – 1986.[5]
  • Cittadino Benemerito di Sanremo (Distinguished citizen of Sanremo, granted by the comune of Sanremo) – 1997.[2]
  • UNICEF Italia plaque at Premio internazionale Genova per lo sviluppo dei popoli (International award for people's development) – 1988.[5]
  • Peace Builders award (granted by the Indian Government) – 2001.[11]

References

  1. ^ Andrea Gandolfo (15 January 2014). "Sanremo: il fondatore dell'Assefa Giovanni Ermiglia ricordato dallo storico Andrea Gandolfo". Sanremonews (in Italian). Retrieved 2 December 2016.
  2. ^ a b c d Roberto Basso (20 April 2011). "Ermiglia: illuminato operatore di pace". L'Eco della Riviera (in Italian). pp. 44–45. Retrieved 9 April 2018.
  3. ^ Direzione generale per le Biblioteche, gli Istituti Culturali e il Diritto d'autore. "Lalla Romano e la cultura francese. Conferenza" (in Italian). Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali. Retrieved 9 April 2018.
  4. ^ Merton, Thomas (1990). "To Father Filiberto Guala". The School of Charity: The Letters Of Thomas Merton On Religious Renewal & Spiritual Direction. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. pp. 371–373. Retrieved 19 March 2018. ermiglia.
  5. ^ a b c d AA.VV. (2001). Contributo degli amici di Torino (Italia) all'ASSEFA (PDF) (in Italian). Torino: ASSEFA. Archived from the original (pdf) on 25 July 2011. Retrieved 11 August 2011.
  6. ^ Edo Gorzegno (3 August 2008). "Ceragioli, un'anima al futuro". La Voce del Popolo (in Italian).
  7. ^ Ishwar C. Harris (1998). Gandhians in Contemporary India: The Vision and the Visionaries. Edwin Mellen Press. p. 177.
  8. ^ Mohanlal Lalloobhai Dantwala (1986). Asian Seminar on Rural Development: The Indian Experience. Oxford & IBH Publishing Company. p. 132.
  9. ^ David Lewis e Nazneen Kanji (2009). Non-Governmental Organizations and Development. Routledge. p. 79.
  10. ^ Ngai Pun, Ben Hok-bun Ku, Hairong Yan, Anita Koo (2015). Social Economy in China and the World. Routledge. p. 164.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  11. ^ Stefano Arduini (14 January 2004). "Pacifismo: è morto a Sanremo Giovanni Ermiglia". Vita Società Editoriale S.p.A. (in Italian). Retrieved 9 April 2018.
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