#tivoglioBene

This is a new open letter for the consignment of the Warehouse registered under the company name “Sea Beach Immobiliare S.r.l”, and located in Via Natale Carta no. 1 - 3 (ex Via BC 20), Palermo, Italy.

Dear Sirs,

We are a group of students from the Liceo delle Scienze Umane e Linguistico "Danilo Dolci", located in Via Fichidindia, in the area of Brancaccio, Palermo.

Within the frame of the workshop on Open Data and Civic Monitoring, run by Andrea Borruso (Confiscati Bene) and coordinated by our teacher Prof. Ferdinando Siringo (Liceo “Danilo Dolci”, March 15th-20th 2018), as part of the preliminary events that accompany and precede “Confiscated Properties: Architecture, Ideology, and Performance”, a project curated by Valentina Sansone (June 16th-November 4th 2018), we worked on a journalistic investigation which has brought to our attention that:

• Italian Law no. 109 from March 7th 1996 (Rognoni La Torre) provides for the granting to third parties of all property confiscated due to the activities of organized crime. By converting them to socially beneficial uses, the third parties return the properties to the community.

• According to up-to-date data released by OpenRegio, the city of Palermo includes 1836 properties and 145 companies confiscated from mafia and assigned to the Municipality.

Among those confiscated properties, a large warehouse, in our school’s immediate surroundings has moved us to action: it is located in Via Natale Carta 1 - 3 (ex Via BC 20, Palermo), registered under the company name “SEA BEACH IMMOBILIARE SRL”.

Since 2000, “Danilo Dolci” high school is located in a confiscated property in the Brancaccio area, Palermo. An example of legality, our school is located in a neighborhood with a high percentage of criminality, which is also affected by the problem of early school leaving.

With this letter, we want to access the confiscated warehouse in order to transform it into a gym and a place for cultural and creative activities. In the morning, the space can be open to the students, who currently do not have a space for physical education. During the rest of the day, the warehouse can be open to all, and offer a new facility for the entire neighborhood.

Our investigation also aims to return the confiscated property to its citizens after almost twenty years. Once open to its community and to the students, the depot can become a theatre, a café and a library, a gym or a place where it is possible to gather and discuss, to share thoughts and ideas.

Palermo, the Italian Capital of Culture in 2018, from June 16th, will also host Manifesta 12, the International Biennale of Contemporary Art, one of the most important cultural events in the international scenario.

As part of the selected events that form Manifesta 12 “Collateral Events” program, we suggest that the warehouse in Brancaccio host the community-based project “Confiscated Properties: Architecture, Ideology, and Performance” by The Great Learning Orchestra, curated by Valentina Sansone. We believe that our collaboration in this event will also give us and our school great visibility.

Back in 2015, another group of students from our Institute, led by Prof. Luigi Barbieri, compiled and released a statement (http://bit.ly/2HVrFfM) and a"videoletter" (“Prevent Illegality: To disarm mafia by the creation of social innovation, awareness and work” in collaboration with “Progetto Legalità ONLUS" Foundation) addressed to ANBSC and to Leoluca Orlando, Mayor of Palermo, among others. As with today’s open letter, in 2015, the students from this school wanted to access the warehouse in order to be able to “create a gym and facilities for music, theatre and cultural activities for the school and the local area”.

This first request was followed by the Mayor’s answer (http://bit.ly/2HTUmK6), which unfortunately has not produced any concrete result yet:

“We immediately embraced the request of the students of the Institute Danilo Dolci. We are in contact with the Director ofANBSC the Prefect Umberto Postiglione, with the Province and with the Judicial Administration, owner of the property, in order to facilitate the return of the warehouse to the institute.”

We are confident that you will support our request, time is up for this situation to change.

Thank you in advance for your collaboration, and we are looking forward to hearing from you.

The students:

Chiara Arnò, Gabriele Bergamaschi, Miriam Cavallaro, Alessia Ciaramitaro, Margherita Contorno, Alessandra D'Amore, Gabriele D'Atria, Aurora Di Bernardo, Elisea Di Dio, Federica Gennaro, Sabrina Labruzzo, Stefania Lo Verde, Vivian Marino, Silvia Noto, Floriana Piraino, Martina Roccamatisi, Federica Russo, Rosario Semoletta, Alessia Villanova, Alessia Zuccarello.

And

Prof. Domenico Di Fatta (Principal) and the teachers from Liceo “Danilo Dolci”.