«A luta continua!». Mobilitazione anticoloniale e cooperazione tra Reggio Emilia e Mozambico

Starting from the post-Second World War period, Emilia-Romagna became, for the Italian Communist Party (PCI), a kind of national (and international) showcase meant to demonstrate the Communists’ effectiveness in administrative management and local government. The synergy between the party, cooperatives, and small to medium-sized enterprises served as the foundation for the development of the specific social, political, and economic fabric that characterised the municipalities and, from the 1970s onward, the region governed by the PCI. In this context, many initiatives of internationalist activism and solidarity in support of liberation struggles in the so-called Third World emerged as early as the 1960s. In particular, the municipality of Reggio Emilia, under the impetus of hospital director and city councillor Giuseppe Soncini, established a support committee for the independence struggle of the Portuguese colonies, forging close ties with Mozambique’s FRELIMO. Drawing on documentation preserved in Soncini’s personal archive, held at the Panizzi Library in Reggio Emilia, this contribution seeks, on the one hand, to reconstruct the initiatives in support of Mozambique – including the sending of medicines and medical supplies, and the training of nursing staff – linking them to the specific local context of the Emilian city; and on the other hand, to shed light on the connection between the experiences of certain aid workers, notably doctors and nurses sent by the Reggio committee to independent Mozambique, and the emergence of a grassroots model of development cooperation, which would later evolve into what is today known as the third sector.