Alma Dolens facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Alma Dolens
Teresita Pasini alias Alma Dolens
Born	Teresita dei Bonfatti February 18, 1869
Died	May 20, 1948 Milan
Nationality	Italian
Other names	Teresita Pasini

Teresita Pasini (born dei Bonfatti, 1869 – 1948), also known as Alma Dolens, was an important Italian activist. She worked for peace, women's rights, and was a journalist. Her special name, "Alma Dolens," comes from Latin words. Alma means "soul" or "heart," and dolens means "pained" or "grieving." So, her name means "sorrowful heart." This name likely showed how sad she felt about war and the military.

About Alma Dolens' Life

Alma Dolens was born in 1869 into a rich family from Umbria, a region in Italy. Her family was well-known for supporting Giuseppe Garibaldi during the time Italy became one country. Alma Dolens later married a lawyer from Milan. He supported her important work for peace and justice.

Alma Dolens' Work for Peace and Rights

Alma Dolens was a strong leader who believed in fairness for everyone. She worked hard to make the world a better place.

Leading Women's Rights and Peace Efforts

Alma Dolens was the president of the Lombardy Committee for Woman Suffrage and Workers' Rights. This group worked to give women the right to vote and improve conditions for workers. She spoke at big peace meetings in 1909 and 1910. This made her a key person in Italy's peace movement, which was mostly led by men at the time.

She strongly believed that women were essential for society to improve. She felt that the lack of women in politics and the peace movement was a big problem. Dolens also wanted to connect the Italian peace movement with trade unions. These are groups that protect workers' rights.

Starting New Peace Groups

Alma Dolens created the Società per la pace femminile (Women's Society for Peace). She traveled all over central Italy to set up local groups for this society. She also worked with a metalworkers' union in Milan. Together, they formed the Associazione nazionale pro arbitrate e disarmo (Workers' Society for Arbitration and Disarmament). By the early 1910s, this group had about 700 members.

Standing Against War

The 1911 Italo-Turkish War caused problems for the peace movement. Some people felt they should support the war, while others did not. Alma Dolens was against the war. She spoke out publicly and asked for money from groups in the United States and Switzerland. She hoped this money would help pacifists (people who believe in peace) restart their work.

She kept working through 1911 and 1912. However, the Italian peace movement eventually broke apart. For two years, Dolens was not allowed to speak in public in Italy. So, she focused on writing about how poor people lived in Italian cities.

In 1913, she went to a peace meeting in Budapest. There, she met and became friends with Rosika Schwimmer, another important activist for peace and women's voting rights. Alma Dolens also started speaking at political events again in 1913. Sometimes, she spoke alongside Margherita Sarfatti.

Advocating for Peace During World War I

In 1914, Alma Dolens attended meetings about the upcoming war in Europe. These meetings were organized by the International Peace Bureau and in The Hague. She and Rosalia Gwiss-Adami represented Italian pacifists at a meeting in Brussels on July 31. This meeting was a final attempt to stop the war from happening.

During the war, she helped families who had lost their homes in Austria-Hungary. After the Italo-Turkish War ended, she traveled through Belgium to give lectures. Seeing the destruction from the war made her believe even more strongly in pacifism. In one of her talks, she said, "the enemy is not at the border; it is all around us: it is poverty, tuberculosis, unemployment. The cure for these diseases is the end of formidable and costly weaponry." She believed that countries should be legally required to use arbitration (a way to settle disagreements without fighting) instead of going to war.

After the Second World War, Alma Dolens lived with socialist friends, Gilberto Gilioli and his wife Myrthe Ripamonti. She passed away in 1948 in Milan.

See also

In Spanish: Alma Dolens para niños