Maria Rita Parsi, psychologist, psychotherapist, writer and tireless champion of children’s rights, has left us. He was 78 years old. His passing marks a profound loss not only for the world of psychology, but for anyone who cares about children, adolescents and their protection, inside and outside institutions.
Born in Rome in 1947, Parsi has dedicated her entire existence to listening to the most vulnerable, bringing their voice where it often does not reach: in the courts, in schools, in the media, up to international offices. He has gone through over half a century of civil and professional commitment with an unshakable conviction: children are not the future, they are the present, and they must be protected here and now.
A popularizer, she combined clinical work with the cultural battle, looking for concrete tools to help, prevent and cure. From this vision, psychoanimation was born, an innovative and humanistic methodology she created, capable of transforming the educational and therapeutic relationship into a path of shared growth. From here, he founded the Italian School of Psychoanimation (SIPA), which over the years has become a point of reference for educators, social workers and trainers.
In 1992 he created the Movement for, with and of childrenwhich later became the Movimento Bambino Onlus Foundation, a fundamental support in the diffusion of the culture of childhood and adolescence, committed to the prevention of abuse, the fight against mistreatment and the promotion of minors’ rights. A daily job, often silent, but decisive.
Maria Rita Parsi has never been afraid of exposing herself. She intervened in the public debate, in newspapers and on television, every time a child was forgotten, exploited or hurt.
Her commitment has reached international institutions: in 2012 she was elected to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, contributing to the supervision of the application of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. In Italy he was part of the Observatory for childhood and adolescence and of the working group on Child Guaranteecontinuing to fight so that rights do not remain only on paper.
Author of over one hundred books including essays, popular texts and fiction, she left behind works that still shake consciences today: Hands on children, SOS Pedophilia, Maladolescencejust to name a few. Tough, necessary, never complacent writings, born from listening and experience in the field.
The numerous awards and recognitions received – from the title of Cavaliere al Merito della Repubblica to the Premio Borsellino – only partially tell what she was. The rest lives in the lives he protected, in the consciences he stirred, in the rights he stubbornly defended.
