The Carlo Laviosa Foundation is engaged in the conclusion of the “Gorgona Project 2021/2022 – The Prison of Freedoms,” conceived and coordinated by Flavia Bertolli, a teacher at the Majorana scientific high school in Capannori and a member of the board of directors of the same Foundation, which has among its main objectives that of developing and supporting projects and actions with strong social and educational value.
In recent months, the Gorgona Project has involved more than 200 students from high schools in Lucca, Capannori, Livorno and Cecina, who, after studying the principles underlying Article 27 of the Italian Constitution and the need for the reintegration into society of inmates who have served their sentences, had the opportunity to learn about the re-educational and working reality of Gorgona by visiting it together with their teachers and under the guidance of environmental experts and some inmates.
VISIT – On the island, the youngsters were able to see the implementation and effectiveness of a detention system in which the inmates present – currently about a hundred – are concretely offered the chance to serve their sentences by rebuilding their identity as active and aware citizens thanks to agricultural, construction, and animal care work, as well as the arrangement of the island’s paths and road system.
During the boys’ visit to the island, Director Dr. Carlo Alberto Mazzerbo gave the young guests the opportunity to meet him on the terrace of the Spaccio in front of the splendid panorama that embraces sea and sky and distant horizons. “Like all prison islands,” Director Carlo Mazzerbo explained to the students, “Gorgona, home to a penitentiary institution since 1896, has always been characterized by the open regime that inmates engaged mainly in activities of an agricultural nature can enjoy. In fact, the philosophy behind the ‘Gorgona model’ is the creation of a real community where each inmate has the opportunity to make his own contribution, with a specific role that develops his sense of belonging, sharing and responsibility.” Underlying this philosophy is the commitment of everyone, guards and inmates, administrators and educators, volunteers and medical staff to work, live and act under the banner of constant and concrete respect for others, as well as for themselves.
THE COMPETITION- Students from the Majorana Scientific High School in Capannori, the Brancoli Busdraghi Technological-Agrarian Institute in Lucca, the Cappellini Nautical Institute in Livorno, the Orlando Vocational Institute in Livorno and the Fermi High School in Cecina were asked to rework the new civic and ethical horizons explored in Gorgona through the creation of graphic panels and videos.
With the results of their work, they will participate in a competition announced by the Foundation that will award prizes to the entries that have best developed the directions and objectives: to illustrate in a permeating and clear way “the values of education and work as tools for the acquisition of the freedom of the individual.”
Freedom not only understood in a geographical sense, but in an inner sense, Freedom as the ability to be that which can facilitate the development of a peaceful life and not to be that which leads to the annihilation of oneself and one’s ability to live under the banner of the full expression of one’s gifts and desires.
THE EXHIBITION – The students’ works will be on display from May 21 to July 2, 2022 in the rooms of the Oil Bottini, in the first-floor spaces facing the library, in an exhibition sponsored by the Laviosa Foundation as part of the initiatives celebrating the company’s Centennial.
Along with the students’ products, the photo collection of guard Pierangelo Campolattano and the photographic results of the workshop conducted by photographer Francesco Sinni will also be on display.
Campolattano has been portraying moments and protagonists of the island’s work and places with skillful and careful delicacy for years.
Sinni’s collection of photos are snapshots and self-portraits taken by the inmates themselves who participated in the workshop held by the freelancer , who on weekends in 2014, 2015 and 2016, traveled to the island to generously and competently teach the art of photography to the inmates.
Some of them achieved professionalism that was expendable in the world of work once they completed their prison terms.
WORK AND RESPONSIBILITY OF TERRITORIAL ENTITIES-The Laviosa Foundation is in contact with the Livorno and Piombino Chamber of Commerce to train and connect future ex-prisoners to the companies that need them.
After an inmate has expiated his sentence and acquired professionalism, he is in fact entitled to be readmitted to the society of which he now has the tools to be part of in a responsible and productive way.
Those who, after paying their debt to justice, are rejected by society, of which they are for all intents and purposes a part, will have no choice but to return to crime.
The problem of recidivism is a burden and a danger to all of us citizens.
Institutions and territorial bodies must take charge and therefore implement those directions (Art 77 of the 1975 law), which call on the President of the Chamber of Commerce, the trade unions the representative of the direct growers, the Director of the Provincial Labor Office the other members of the Committee to provide concrete interventions so that the law is implemented for the Good and respect of all. It is therefore necessary to recall Art 4 of our Constitution: ” The Republic recognizes the right of all citizens to work and promotes the conditions that make this right effective …” RECREATION- Gorgona Prison addresses and guarantees the inmate the full realization of his rights as an individual as a working subject, but also as a whole person: including the family, intellectual, spiritual and recreational spheres.
On the island there is a church that accommodates and respects everyone’s religious beliefs, a school where inmates can retrace the steps that life’s adversities have denied them, a sports field where soccer tournaments are held among all the professional skills present, and a library that strives to enrich and fortify the character and vision of inmates.
Cultural, sports and recreational activities are activities aimed at a single purpose : social reintegration STRENGTH AND IMPORTANCE OF FAMILY AFFECTIONS – Particular care is given to conversations with family members: at Gorgona a protected area has been created with a garden with children’s games and private spaces and where families and inmates can meet to maintain and fortify those relationships of affection that are indispensable for redemption and self-recovery.
At Gorgona, work and humanity are recognized and practiced areas, a demonstration that this is possible.
CONCLUSION.
Visiting Gorgona and reflecting on Gorgona is an opportunity for growth and awareness of the concept of legality, redemption, recovery rehabilitation.
Already the Enlightenmentists of the 1700s, Cesare Beccaria in primis, had intended and promoted a reconsideration of the crude brutality of punishment understood as affliction of body and spirit.
Centuries and lives lost to this limiting and erroneous view bring us to Gorgona, the island of rebirth, the prison of freedom.
