The amazement of the neighborhood in seeing teachers and students strolling, the new light in the eyes of the residents in observing a world, their world, made of that normality that makes you feel the owner of an intangible citizenship is the image of He scampered yesterday, October 17. “From Piazza di Spaccio in 1997 to Piazza della Cultura today “ comments the rector of Federico II Matteo Lorito swollen with legitimate pride. “To those who say that it is a cathedral in the desert, I reply that it is not so because Federico II has almost 40 locations and because scampìa is not a desert”. It took a good 25 years for the I plan to bring the university to Scampìa materialized, but what a satisfaction for the institutions and especially for the people of Scampìa. The space that once – we are in 2006 – was occupied by the infamous Vela H is now filled with a beautiful building signed by never too much regret Vittorio Gregotti which hosts the university campus for the “Health Professions” of Federico II. An exciting moment is the pilgrimage of those young mothers who lived there in Vela H and now see the redemption of a life for their children in the University. “Today Naples joins one of its most forgotten and labeled suburbs, today a new story begins in a place where many young people came to seek death, in this neighborhood young people will come to build their own future”. With these words, the bishop Don Mimmo Battaglia blessed the new faculty with dozens and dozens of students who were following their first lessons inside.
A quarter of a century to bring up “the most powerful means for development there is,” says the Rector. It is no coincidence that Federico II – after the Polo di San Giovanni a Teduccio – places another blow in the suburbs and becomes a model in terms of development and inclusion strategies. Now the young people who come to Scampìa to those who ask them why they frequent that neighborhood can answer “let’s go to the University” and not to a place without hope. Twenty-five years is a long time and the mayor and former rector Gaetano Manfredi – the pole of the eastern area was born from his intuition – he wanted all the protagonists of this very long season. So in the aula magna he is present Antonio Bassolino, his idea in 1997 to bring the University a bet that made history; Rosetta Iervolino is evoked, who that project tried to carry out together with Guido Trombetti, farsighted rector of the time. Then two councilors of the council of Luigi de Magistris – Mario Calabrese and Carmine Piscopo who was also deputy mayor – who stubbornly filled that idea with content together with the Vele di Scampìa Committee. And then the current council with Manfredi’s deputy Laura Lieto, Pier Paolo Baretta and Chiara Marciani.
“The value of this inauguration – says the mayor – is not someone’s success, but the victory of a city, a neighborhood over a prejudice that Scampìa was a place of death, of the Camorra, that it was the place where things they are never done, where we talk and never get to the result, it is not like that ». Happy as well as satisfied the former rector: «In Naples and Campania there are capable people who are able to do better than in other parts of Italy. Today it is an effort that rewards everyone, not those who inaugurated it, not us who are here, but anyone who has made a contribution has the reward of achieving this result which is everyone’s heritage. If we have this University today, we owe it to the community of Scampìa which has never given up, has always pressed the institutions to ensure that this great dream does not die out ». The sparkling smile of the governor Vincenzo De Luca, however, invites us to keep our feet on the ground: “Let’s talk honestly, here the Camorra has not disappeared – he says – we have a strong roots in organized crime, but we know that the reality of Scampìa is so complex and rich that deserves to be described in all its aspects. It’s a beautiful neighborhood ». The closing is up to Maria Crstina Messa, minister for the university. “It is a very important initiative not only for Naples but as a strong signal of what an institution like the University can do for its territory and for its country”.