The National Working Group for the “Room of Silence and Worship”

The National Working Group for the “Room of Silence and Worship” is a voluntary committee established in June 2016, founded and sponsored at that time by the Death Studies and End Life Master’s programs at the University of Padua, the Intercultural Master’s Degree in Health, Welfare, Work, and Integration at the University of Modena, the Benvenuti in Italia Foundation, the Fabretti Foundation in Turin, and Socrem Torino. Other organizations have since joined, such as Parma Multi Faith, which is hosting us here, Arciatea, and numerous others throughout Italy, which are listed on our website: www.stanzadelsilenzio.it. The main objectives of the Group are to promote the dissemination and improvement of initiatives dedicated to welcoming cultural and religious specificities in healthcare facilities, cities, neighborhoods, Italian prisons, universities, and cemeteries, thus promoting the spread of the “Rooms” in these places, and the dissemination of all content related to interreligious dialogue, the cultural competence of the professionals involved, relational aspects of religious assistance, and the management and methodology of spaces dedicated to differences.

The local group in Parma for the “Room of Silence and Worship”

Given the informal nature of this network of people and its primarily educational aims, considerable scope is left for local groups in Italian cities to take concrete action: proposing to institutions and, if possible, implementing the “Stanza” initiative in agreement with religious and spiritual communities. Thus, a local group has also been informally set up in Parma, with the coordinator of the national group, Alessandro Bonardi, resident in Parma, founding member, Prof. Luciano Mazzoni Benoni, President of the Interreligious Forum of Parma, founding member and member of the Group’s Board, Maria Angela Gelati of Rumore del Lutto, founding member, Mounia El Fasi, Francesco Gianola Bazzini, and Lisa Zuliani, and about twenty professionals in the network (architects, lawyers, doctors and health professionals, university professors). Over the years, a network protocol has been signed (2019) between religious communities, spiritual communities, and some associations in the city to promote the initiative at the Parma University Hospital. They also wrote and proposed to the signatory regional councilors the text of the Resolution to commit the Council to identifying solutions capable of ensuring spiritual and religious assistance to patients of all faiths or religious beliefs, evaluating for this purpose the appropriateness and feasibility of the initiative “Rooms of Silence and Worship,” promoting the concrete implementation of the related installations in healthcare and hospital facilities.