Remove the kids from the street and lead them to a healthy place where they can grow, study and orient themselves in the world of work, with a civil conscience nourished by the principles of legality. This is the commitment of the operators and volunteers of the “Diorama” educational center promoted by Diocesan Caritas of Cerignola-Ascoli Satriano thanks to funds from8x thousand which, from 2020, offers minors and young people in general a structure that keeps them away from organized crime in the area. The structure is located in Cerignola, a populous town of almost 60,000 inhabitants in the Foggia area, which in recent years has seen the City Council dissolved for mafia infiltration. “We live in a reality with a high crime rate where even mafia attitudes create attempts at emulation – explains Don Pasquale Cotugno, director of the diocesan Caritas, to Gianni Vukaj in the new episode of the series Signed by you broadcast on Tv2000 – and therefore to counter this system we decided to operate in the educational field, especially with minors, because it seemed to us a way to provide them with an alternative to the path that would have risked making them end up in the mesh of crime. We have already started in 2018, when there was still no structure, developing projects in the most peripheral districts “.
The center is a safe haven because it reduces the dangers of equivocal visits and pushes away the haphazard promises and the apparent ease of earning that invite so many young people to join the ranks of organized crime. One attends it, as stable presences fifty boys elementary and middle schools, even if in the rest of the year there are initiatives that involve many other young people on the threshold of coming of age. A system that works, he explains Tiziana Traversi, Caritas volunteer of the centerWhy “‘Diorama’ is the place and time to grow up, to socialize, to feel at home“. Just as the name of the project suggests – the diorama it is the museum reconstruction, among other things, of landscapes and historical places enhanced with special lighting –the educational center wants to give importance “To what one is – explicit don Pasquale – and in this place every ‘enlightened-accompanied’ child will be able to build a social system based on respect for natural human rights. The passion for the Baustelle who wrote a song with this title also affected the name of the project “. In the structure there is no shortage of cultural and spiritual references: there are, in fact, three rooms respectively dedicated to Don Lorenzo Milani, Don Tonino Bello and Carlo Acutis. A project that will go on “thanks to the establishment of the cooperative ‘Charlie fa surf’ – precise the director – who will manage the center. Cooperative always born from Caritas projects and Policoro project “.
And, within these protected and well-structured tracks, the users of the center move, learning in the concreteness of making the sense of human relationships that are not spoiled by deviant elements. The boys tell their experience between feelings of great value – “The most important thing I have learned here is friendship, because it is an important place where we feel good with operators and friends” they say two kids – and an important awareness of the territorial reality: “In Cerignola there are people who respect the rules, while others don’t”, He says another. The center fights “our worst fear, which is early school leaving – points out Vincenzo Casieri, educator of the project – because so many of our kids have daily contact with ugly realities “. The drama that is experienced in all the suburbs is precisely this distance that seems abysmal: “Those who live around here – declares the director of the diocesan Caritas – they feel excluded, distant, and for families school and education are not the priority while for us it is essential to make it clear that real growth for the child and his success as an adult depend on the cultural level and education “. “Here the mafia culture is well rooted – adds Don Cotugno – and continues beyond the known clans of our territory, because here it operates within what Don Ciotti defines as the gray zone, that is, in that network of relationships and attitudes that moves in the space on the border between the legal and the illegal “. In this key, the activity of the center is not enough, because it operates through a real participation in the life of the children, in a network with families and schools. “We also accompanied the boys to school – keep on Vincenzo –, we try to follow and support them for as long as possible “. And the results are not lacking, even as a form of awareness for adults: “To hear from families that it is nice to see their children in this facility rather than on the street – concludes Tiziana – is already a source of great pride “.
The testimonies of Don Pasquale, Vincenzo, Tiziana and the guys from the “Diorama” project are at the center of a new video from the series Signed by you, a television project by TV2000 which tells, through the voice of the protagonists, what is actually being done with the 8xmille destined for the Catholic Church. A story in the first person, without filters, with a tight and cinematic editing, which involves the viewer in the folds of the many experiences supported by Christian charity, also thanks to the signatures of taxpayers. Signed by you is a series, conceived and directed by Gianni Vukaj, director of TV 2000, in collaboration with the Service for the promotion of economic support to the Catholic Church. Conceived as a training course for four television broadcasters (Telepace of Verona and Telepace of Rome, Tv Prato, Teledehon of Andria), who participated in the making of the films, the program highlights the value of gratuitousness, touches the living flesh of wounds that often do not want to be seen, includes the efforts of an outgoing Church, which takes care of the weakest. The videos of the TV series highlight the thousand intertwining that the Catholic Church is able to create, giving possibilities and hope, intervening with discretion and respect, working with creativity and positivity in the present of Italy that is struggling. Every year, thanks to the signatures of taxpayers, come truein Italy and in the poorest countries in the world, over 8,000 projects they see engaged priests, nuns and the many operators and volunteers who make a real country better every day, made up of good deeds, good news. Allocate 8xmille to the Catholic Church it is therefore equivalent to ensuring comfort, assistance and charity thanks to a signature that translates into service to others. The Catholic Church relies on the freedom and co-responsibility of the faithful and Italian taxpayers to renew it, in support of its mission. There are many projects documented in the series broadcast on Tv2000 and available online on the channel YouTube 8xmille. The video can be shared at the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31EH2aN6nVQ.
“Signed by you” tells of the ‘Diorama’ project of the diocesan Caritas of Cerignola-Ascoli Satriano