Dominique Jean Paul Stanisci is a special travel blogger.
Abandoned the prestigious law firm of the city, redesigns his destiny around the birthplace of Alberobello.
Thus transforms an old farmhouse built by his former emigrant ancestors in a meeting for “Joyful People”, open only a few months a year because the rest of the time is precious for living the world.
5 themed rooms to experience Africa, love, the 70s, peace and country atmosphere.
In every corner there is the respect for life, things and people, the baggage of the experience of his wandering. An example of this is the international non-profit project “Kaki Tree Project” also known as “The renaissance of time” which originates and develops around a part of tree that miraculously survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. Jean Paul is It was chosen and selected to receive from the Japanese international association the cuttings of the mother tree that was sent from Hiroshima and transplanted to Alberobello. Jean Paul promotes the project at several schools in Alberobello.
Passionate about “white journeys“, he writes and publishes his first book that is very successful in his region and not only, as well as his original B & B, while he designs and creates his travel blog: www.viaggibianchi.it
He just came back from Rwanda and we could not miss the opportunity to let us tell his new adventure in preview.
To begin with I ask you to tell us what are “white journeys” and “black tourism”, but above all how did you discover your passion?
The editorial project “Viaggi Bianchi” is a collection of stories and anecdotes that I experienced personally, after reaching the memorial sites of Hiroshima, Auschwitz, Killing Fields, Chernobyl and later also Alcatraz, Ground Zero and the Tutsi Genocide, with the only end of telling, in an overview and “net” of both the official theses and negationist, some of the most disturbing atrocities of contemporary history. White journeys are opposed to “black tourism” for the purpose; for me, visiting the cemeteries of distant cultures or places of memory, has nothing to do with tourism or with black, I’m not attracted by such ugliness of life, for me it’s about inner travel before physical , they are white just in contrast to black, because white is the lotus flower that from the slime flowers white; The aim of the project is to rediscover the value of human dignity starting from the places where this value has been most desecrated.
As I said, you have just returned from Rwanda, I imagine to relive and document the sensations that remain today after one of the bloodiest genocides in the history of Africa in 1994: the sad massacre of 100 days that saw the massacre of about 500,000 people. Quite right?
I decided to travel to Rwanda a year in advance, I wanted to go and see for myself the places where the Hutu genocide against the Tutsis took place. As always in this type of travel, in places not very globalized, with not many tourist presences, it is never easy to find all the information through the internet, so as I used to get those three essential information, I booked the place where I would have slept the first two days, and I set off to discover a land that was noticeable as far as organization and reception were not easy. More secure than I expected, with hygienic conditions above what I imagined, I finally managed to see everything that I had in mind, even something more, using the days I had available. One thing that struck me right away, is that in the suburbs attracted the curiosity of everyone in the only passage, the fact of not having skin as colorful as theirs, attracted the attention of the children who were clustered around me, often touching. This episode, which at first has a moment displaced me, shows that it is actually not a place taken by assault or globalized, contact with natives especially in villages made of houses on earth and dung, are of mutual distrust, at the beginning , only to discover that in reality there is only so much curiosity, no bad intention, a great desire to know. Another thing that struck me was nature, in some areas it is very present in terms of purity, like the rainforest, where the only sounds are those of the monkeys called, or the rare birds chasing each other. Even the great Lake Kivu gave me strong emotions like the discovery of giant bats. As for the places of memory, the real reason for my visit to Rwanda, I discovered terrible stories, seen horrifying places of which I am still in the process of metabolism and which I will tell, in my time, on my blog and in particular in my next book. a page of history very difficult, which does not belong to the past having known on the spot foreign humanitarian organizations that are concerned with preventing future genocides living Rwanda today a kind of cultural chaos that will not be easy to make a change.
How are your white journeys born and what are your plans for your next white trip?
My travels are first of all moved by the search for places of memory, in various ways, around the world, so “simply” I go in search of those places now become a symbol of the violation of human rights, to discover stories in which instead through those who experienced those events found the strength and the courage to bring out the pulsating forces of life in the form of hope; this is why my book has a subtitle that says: to illuminate the darkness with the power of hope.
From a lawyer to an innkeeper, from a traveler to a writer, other surprising metamorphoses in your destiny?
The novelty of the last few months is the growing attention to my blog (viagggibianchi.it) that will soon be dressed in a different style, aimed not only at stories of white journeys, but will also be open to all travel experiences that up to this moment I had left aside. Also for the new year I will hold meetings not only for the presentation of the book, but I will also participate in events as a travel blogger, in order to tell some travel experiences that the public of social media believes deserve to be shared outside the world of the net, from the experience of the sled dog on the frozen lake and the Aurora aurora in Alaska, to the navigation of a river inhabited by crocodiles among the villages of stilt houses in Cambodia, passing through the Ashrams in India and the descent into the oldest rainforest of Africa, to name a few … *
(*) This translation is automatically generated by the system
Dhebora Mirabelli is a legal project manager as well as a lawyer specializing in administrative law and protection of human rights.
An expert on equal opportunities, social business and corporate social responsibility, she has worked for over fifteen years as managerial coordination of European projects at the Agency for Digital Italy, the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Economic Development, the Ministry for the Protection of the Environment, the Earth and the Sea, the Directorate for Cooperation and Development of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, etc. on the themes of social inclusion, social responsibility, protection of human and environmental rights.
He graduated in business law at the Luiss Guido Carli in Rome, the first level degree in Manager of Development and Cohesion Policies at the University of Parma, the II level Master in Engineering for Public Administrations at the University of Parma. University of Rome Tor Vergata and the Master’s Degree of Executive Business Administration (MBA) at the Graduate Business School of the MIP-Politecnico of Milan, deepening his studies in the international course held at the Tonjii University School of Management in Shanghai, the Audencia Nantes Ecole de Management and the Coppead UFRJ of Rio de Janeiro.
He is a member of the coordination of the national DESC on the Economic and Social Rights of Amnesty International since 2015. Slow Food member. Support of the projects in Africa of the “La Terra di Piero” Association and of the initiatives against the mafia of the “Gli Amici di Goel” volunteers association.
He has edited several sections of online publications, among the most important: https://immigrazione.west-info.eu/; http://www.socialchangeschool.org/it/tag/blog-fatto-quotidiano/; http://www.spiritoleader.it/category/csr-mip/
He has published a book of fairy tales and African photographs “Pole Pole: fairy tales and colors of Tanzania” devolving the proceeds to build a school in Tanzania. Born in Rende, she lived in Sydney recently returned to Italy.