The Tavola del Mondo, or the World’s Table, was the closing act of the two weeks dedicated to WE – Women for Expo Milano 2015, and featured the powerfully symbolic gesture of sharing with the world various typical kinds of food from all the nations present at the Universal Exposition. Along with Emma Bonino, Honorary President of Women for Expo,Diana Bracco, Commissioner General of the Italian Pavilion, Marta Dassù, Executive President of Women for Expo,Vicente Loscertales, Secretary General of the Bureau International des Expositions, Giuseppe Sala, Chief Commissioner of Expo Milano 2015 and of the Expo AmbassadorsMariagrazia Cucinotta, Martina Colombari and Samya Abbary, 400 women (only!) members of all the participating nations paraded joyfully along the Decumano to the sound of music and the scent of food, offering visitors their national nibbles.

 

A blue spoon, emblem of a shared goal

The whole event was enlivened by festive music and a marching band which accompanied the parade all the way to the enormously long table prepared for the occasion, representing the concept of the place where mankind meets, shares and engages in dialogue and pleasure, and where food becomes communication and belief in a crucial message which places women, with their roles and their rights, at the center of the battle against hunger and social injustice. As a further symbol of this pact for the future, the delegations from the United Nations paraded in kitchen aprons, printed with the key goal slogans of defeating hunger, implementing women’s empowerment and establishing gender equality. The UN also distributed blue spoons, symbols of the Zero Hunger Challenge, representing all the peoples and all the women who are still without food security.