It’s nine months already that I’m walking down the streets of the Rainbow. No I’m not daydreaming neither I’m under drug effect. I’m talking about the roads that connect the Italian speaking locals.
These roads have always been tough, tortuous and full of obstacles; the Network Commissioners’ (NetCommies) work here has not always been a piece of cake. Hard work and passion sometimes could not fit all the holes of the human understanding, especially for a relatively new generation of the AEEEEans that have to face old slags of rooted “customary laws” that have become almost traditions.
How to deal with them? How to proceed to a better understanding? How to find solutions? How to…? There are many questions that need time and patience to be answered and most of all need a path. Culture and tradition walk in parallel in our territory, gaining strength each step they take together. The more time has been passing, the more it has been hard to extract out the bad roots they took along the road and implement the new ones. But there are times to do so in any society (history speaks for that), and rainy days, even if not so welcomed can give you a hope for good times to come, can wash away the waste and let you see a new rainbow.
Someone said: “When it rains on your parade, look up rather than down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow.”
It seems it rained quite a lot along the streets of Italy, and in some part it is still raining, but exploring, travelling, getting to know better our streets and people who walk around them, I can witness a new will that is slowly growing. The will to look up rather than down. The will to change things and move on for better things.
What made me to think of that? Participation, motivation, involvement and passion, as simple as that.
Network Meetings (NWM) in Pisa and Napoli, last five months have brought together many active and fresh AEGEEans that have discussed and questioned many topics of huge importance for the growth of our Network. Fresh members are taking over trying to implement new ideas and newly born locals are showing the “oldies” how learning by doing is working also in Italy – you just need a little motivation. This process has started already one year ago with the NWM in Catania, boosting the Italian speaking locals, and keeps going on.
My trip along this new Rainbow is not finished yet, I have some months ahead still to work with people who gave me a lot during my period as Netcommie and I’ll make sure I’ll give them back all my best to try to admire a shiny Rainbow at the Autumn Agora Budapest 2012.
But now, as the summer time has come and the Rainbow locals will host many AEGEEans 
coming from all over Europe, I just want to wish good luck to all the locals organising SUs and summer events. I’m sure you will do a great job and you will show how the heart and soul of young Europeans is still beating along the streets of the Rainbow.
Written by Matteo Scarpa (the Network Commission of AEGEE-Europe, AEGEE-Salerno)
Photos by Network Commission
Remark by The AEGEEan: This article reflects the personal opinion of the author.