Istituto comprensivo “Sandro Pertini”

Address: Via aldo moro 4, Capannoli (Pisa)

Country: Italy

School website

Project: io la mafia non la digerisco (“I don’t digest mafia”)

Working language during the project:

Italian

Themes of the Council of Europe campaign “FREE to SPEAK, SAFE to LEARN - Democratic Schools for All” covered:

Addressing controversial issues

Competences from the Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture (CDC) addressed and where / how they were integrated:

Valuing democracy, justice, fairness, equality and the rule of law
to establish a culture of lawfulness through the fight against the mafia
Civic-mindedness
To establish a sense of civic duty and the respect for law in the life of the community
Respect
To encourage students to listen and respect the ideas of others

Target group age range:

11-15

Level of education:

Lower secondary education

Short description of the project:

Moving from the parody of a famous TV show, the video “Io la mafia non la digerisco” (“I don’t digest mafia”) aims at fighting the mafia and similar criminal organizations while spreading a culture of lawfulness. The video is the final result of a project submitted to a national competition “Diamo forza al nostro impegno” (“More strength to our commitment”) promoted by the Falcone Foundation. We won the first prize in the 2016 edition and were awarded a prize by the Tuscany Region in 2017. During classes students read law books, watched films and finally, with the help of teachers and a professional videomaker, they drafted a short script. In the movie some corrupt cooks compete for the best course, but the cook that makes the “Lawful Pizza” is the winner. All the students took part in creating the video and everyone was invited to express his/her opinion.

Thanks to the project students could:

improve their knowledge of the mafia and related topics;
develop their creativity;
work as a team;
learn some techniques for creating videos.

Thanks to their winning the prize, some students were invited to Palermo on 23 May, lawfulness day, to meet many personalities from Italian politics and society. The project proved to be a real success both for teachers and students. Let's hope our efforts for a better understanding of criminal organizations such as the mafia could improve the culture of respect for the law and honesty. School is the right place to begin.