Celebration of the day of Remembrance and commitment in memory of the innocent victims of the mafias at the Vibo Valentia district house. On March 24, the wind of Trapani, where the XXX edition of the “National Day of Memory and the commitment in memory of the innocent victims of the mafias” was celebrated, came to the district house of Vibo Valentia. Thanks to the availability of the director, Dr. Angela Marcello, and of the officials of the pedagogical-legal area, who immediately accepted the proposal of the provincial coordination of the Libera Association, led by Maria Joel Conocchiella, it was possible to read the 193 innocent victims of the ‘Ndrangheta at the Vibonese penitentiary institution. The initiative was involved in a group of high security prisoners together with some students and students of the hotel institute of Vibo Valentia, the meeting was preceded, in the previous days, by a short journey that Libera carried out with a small group of prisoners actively involved in reading the names. After the greetings of the director and councilor Luisa Santoro, who intervened for the Municipality of Vibo Valentia, the commemorative moment was introduced by the reflections of Giuseppe Borrello, a regional contact person of Libera in Calabria, who explained the meaning and origin of the “day”, the value of memory as a redemption tool and resilience.
A memory that must not be sterile or rhetoric commemoration but force of commitment. Memory that, in some places, as, in fact, prisons, assumes a greater weight and is charged with a disruptive sense, opening up to the possibility of a critical revision of their choices in the hope of instracting to travel
new paths of life. Strong and decisive but at the same time of a brilliant humanity, the intervention of his excellence the prefect of Vibo Valentia, Dr. Anna Aurora Colosimo, who by contacting the prisoners and girls and boys of the school spoke of the important value of freedom as a keyword in the life of the individuals and undoubtedly of the community, well to be protected and on which to reflect in our daily choices. Before reading the names, made by the prisoners and students, Matteo Luzza, a family member of the innocent victim of the ‘Ndrangheta, told the story of his brother Giuseppe, killed because “guilty of love”. A strong, disruptive and passionate testimony of those who, speaking of life, have tense to that humanity imprisoned without any sense of rancor or resentment but rather, with the hope of generating new lives. A strong emotion that involved all those present in the hope that he may have opened fractures from which he may sprout awareness, responsibility and desire for change for tomorrow.