Over the past 26 years our mission has developed: it has become a chance for people to exchange experiences and deepen their knowledge of the world.  As the main areas of interest of the International Youth Festival have always been art and sport, these will remain our central themes.  Italy has been chosen as our location, and more precisely the province of Piacenza in Emilia-Romagna. It’s near the mountains that border with the provinces of Parma and Genova and not far from Milan, Venice, Pisa and Florence, which are some of the most important cultural centres of the world.  This place in the mountains makes an ideal setting for the gathering together of young people from different cultures.  The beauty of the  natural setting, with its clean air and water, brings out the best in  everyone.
Casa Montagna was designed for community living and so facilitates opportunities for guests to meet and get to know each other.  Participants are encouraged to demonstrate the best of their talents and culture in an atmosphere of community living, with the use of  excellent outdoor sports facilities and the communal areas used for recreation and performances..
To make sure that the exchange is successful, we must also take into consideration the preparatory phases which are often very time-consuming. There are three stages in this process:  preparation, showing and sharing, gathering feedback.

BEFORE

This is the most important part of the whole experience. In this phase the artistic and sporting activities are planned so that they are not only meaningful and representative of their culture of origin, but also easy to perform and easily understood. This ensures the exchange works in the best possible way.  To help you to do this, we have prepared a list of methods, activities and opportunities for mutual benefit.
Among these, we should point out the rich cultural heritage of our province and of Italy in general. You will be able to visit some of the cultural centres of the area during your stay.
This year is the first time we have invited you to make a DVD following the guidelines set out in the “Screenplay forGroup Videos” Project. This video is designed to introduce you in the most complete and effective way and to highlight your artistic talents.
During
During the course of your stay in Italy you will be given the chance to show and exchange the best of you repertoire.  The success of the cultural exchange will depend not only on the “goods” exchanged, but also on those social values that you present them with: generosity, friendship, mutual respect and understanding, collaboration, solidarity, bodily and mental hygiene, among others.
These objectives will become reality through:

1. The presentation of your DVD in which you tell us about the place you come from and your story.
2. The performances of your artistic and sporting talents during the public shows that form part of the Festival.
3. The National Day, which is the day dedicated to your group and your nation.  On this occasion, you will be able to share some of  the best aspects of your cultural programme with all the other participants.
4. The programme of sport, entertainment and outdoor activities in the rich natural environment  surrounding Casa Montagna.
5. Visits to the towns and places of artistic interest that, as you know, make Italy an open air museum.  You will be able to choose the places you would most like to visit.

AFTER

This last phase is fundamental because it gives additional meaning to your experience and helps create a strong network of international relations. This is a very useful resource which makes our social and intercultural mission even more fruitful.
For this reason, we ask you to:

1. Write down your thoughts, emotions and suggestions to leave us, preferably at the end of your visit.
2. Give us copies of the digital photos you have taken, so that we can make a selection for a DVD to give you before you leave. What could be a better souvenir of your visit to Casa Montagna ?
3. On your return home, make a DVD of your experiences. If you want you can use parts of your group presentation DVD, combined with videos of the Festival. In this way you can  recount the ‘before’, ‘during’, and ‘after’ phases of your experience. By ‘after’, I mean recording  your opinions and impressions following your stay.

Conclusion

Our task, at the end of these three phases (before, during and after) will be that of selecting the best parts and showing them on our site www.vivasworld.org and, if possible, in our magazine Ok Sport.

This will make the experience more fruitful for everyone involved which  is the real benefit that our International Youth Festival offers.   This experience will help us build the hoped for World Youth Meeting on the occasion of the 2015 Expo in Milan, which isn’t very far from our Casa Montagna Valnure in Ferriere.