Talk about your research

The gaze gets lost dreaming of distant horizons in this corner of Calabria where the silence is broken only by the breath of the wind and the roar of the sea waves breaking on the cliffs. We are in Punta Cannone, a suburb of the small town of Isola di Capo Rizzuto.

A white house stands on the cliff. It used to belong to Nicola Arena, one of the most powerful boss of the 'Ndrangheta clan, and finally confiscated on the 14th October 1994. On 20th August 2001, the State Property Agency notified eviction. On 24th October, the town of Isola Capo Rizzuto communicated to the Agency the destinations of the confiscated goods. A decree of 29th March 2002 from the State Property Agency established its transfer to the Municipality for social purposes. The project "Requalification of a confiscated property to create a climatic colony", now under the supervision and monitoring of the Landclaim3rs team, was approved to transform this magnificent house into a climatic colony for disabled people in compliance with the objective of social inclusion and the fight against illegality fixed in the Por Conv Fesr Calabria program, according to which 450,000 € were allocated to the Municipality.

In the first step of data expedition, open data were collected using software such as Excel and Openrefine; the data set was then structured through a scraping phase. Having found the data and ascertained their quality and usability, we moved on to processing them. Calabria Region is the planner, while the municipality of Isola di Capo Rizzuto is the beneficiary and implementer. The general objective of the QSN was to promote an inclusive society and guarantee conditions of security in order to permanently improve the context conditions which most directly promote development. The intervention, eligible for funding under the 2007-2013 European Regional Development Fund Programme, was started by the council led by the former mayor Gianluca Bruno, but, since the work had been almost completed, the building was vandalized several times. The start of the project was scheduled for December 31st, 2012, the end for June 15th of the same year. The first down payment of 30 per cent was requested by the Municipality in 2011; the last payments date back to 2016. The planning document for the three-year period 2019-21 of the municipal administration, now led by the mayor Maria Grazia Vittimberga, still provides for the construction of the climatic colony in that structure on "sheet 31 parcel 12". Today, however, all that remains are torn doors and windows, shattered glass and piles of rubbish that seem to erase again another opportunity to revitalize a territory too often harassed by the only criminal organization, the 'Ndrangheta, still operating in all five continents. For years no one has dared to set foot in that two-storey house to reuse it for social purposes despite the already squandered public money. We tried to do it, The Landclaim3rs, a group of Ciliberto students convinced that the value of a confiscated property should be a dynamic and proactive mean to create new alternatives in this area. Only in this way it will be possible to think of the goods confiscated from the mafias as new common goods capable of creating opportunities for people and their communities especially in those territories, such as Crotone district, where alternatives to mafia power seem to be absent. Within the theme of common goods and their reuse, in fact, there are also the challenges of our contemporary world: the struggle for rights. The European concepts of democracy and citizenship, as well as those inherent in our Constitution, starting from the application of article 3, even in the land of Calabria, are strengthened from the claim of social rights, as already claimed in the name of our team, to distance a territory and its people from the bloody hands of godparents and masters who have even deprived us of our dignity. The logo created by the team shows a confiscated and restructured asset depicted in red – as a symbol of spilled blood -, whose subsequent vandalization has destroyed a social reuse that would guarantee rights and economic development. The Landclaim3rs believe that, after decades, the time has come for EU funds to be a tool for Calabria to achieve a certain goal, that is convergence, and not a consumer good devoured by a few, unable to produce the common good. Our research, aiming at the reuse of this asset, will therefore be addressed both to the school community and to the entire provincial district and, in particular, to its youth generations. The data found in our research will be disseminated through social channels and the activation of a web radio and a web TV. Of course, talking about mafias is not easy. Especially if you live in the land of denied rights. Because this is what those mafias generate today, even without shooting, keeping on killing men and territories with their hands. The social reuse of a confiscated good is one of the possible answers offered by the State, especially in territories like ours where the mafias have become, over the years, a system of power. We claim possession of our land. We have chosen to stand on the side of that responsibility which always goes with the development of a democratic society. Believing or telling that “the 'Ndrangheta does not exist” is just a beautiful fairy tale. And instead, a good fairy tale could begin with guys like us, who consciously decide to reclaim their land. Navigating no man's land starts from here. Perhaps, from the skin of the winds, Eolo will bring out a mild wind of calm. Meanwhile the wind is still blowing. Even on this property, abandoned by the state, in front of an uncontaminated sea. The impression, however, is that until today we have sailed in some uncharted waters.