News stories by Valerie Dee

In 1875 a handful of families from the Veneto region of northern Italy, fleeing hardship and hunger, took ship for the Empire of Brazil. Disembarking in Porto Alegre in the southeast, they hacked their way for over 100 kilometres through densely wooded country into the Serra Gaúcha hills, up to 800 metres above sea level.

This city of 100,000 people in the southernmost Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul is named after the leader of the 1835-1845 Revoluçao Farroupilha (Ragged Revolution), which under the slogan 'Liberty, Equality, Humanity' resulted in the independence of the state from the Brazilian empire. At an international conference here today, peaceful revolutionaries are furthering similar ideals.