Cultural relations
Born in the 70s thanks to a committee of Italians gathered in the “Zambian Italian Cultural Center Trust” association, the Italian School of Lusaka continues to exist today with more than 400 students as a private international school.
In June 2019 the Dante Alighieri Society was re-established for the promotion and diffusion of the Italian language in Zambia and on 16 March 2019 the new Italian Zambian Cultural Center was officially inaugurated: a multifunctional structure that will be able to host cultural and promotion initiatives of the system country in different sectors.
Our Embassy and the State University of Zambia (UNZA) signed a Memorandum of Understanding in February 2018 with the aim of teaching the Italian language at the University but which also served to establish collaborations of a cultural nature with other nature as an activity for the celebrations of the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci in November 2019.
As part of the ‘Living Italian-style’ programme, the Embassy has always promoted various integrated cultural and promotional initiatives of the country system. We should remember the Italian Cuisine Week which in the last edition, in November 2019, paid attention to the training of Zambian chefs carried out by the Italian chef Alessandro Del Bono who presented a series of dishes inspired by the Sicilian tradition. Speaking at the events, the Minister of Tourism, Hon. Ronald Chitotela, expressed strong appreciation for the training activity in a crucial sector for the development of Tourism in Zambia such as the culinary one.
In 2020, despite the restrictions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the Embassy kept the cultural sector alive through some webinars on art, in a hybrid format (restricted and online presence at ZICC) for example on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of Dante Alighieri, of the Contemporary Day and a Webinar on the Secrets of Michelangelo.