The fight for the Kindergarten in Brancaccio "I PICCOLI DI PADRE PINO PUGLISI" continues.
"I believe in all forms of study, insight and protest against the Mafia. The mafia feeds on a culture and spreads it: the culture of lawlessness. The underlying culture of the Mafia is the selling out of the value of human dignity. And speeches, the spread of a different culture, are of great importance. But we have to be very careful that we don't stop at protests, marches, denunciations. If we stop at that, they are just words. Words must be validated by deeds" (Blessed Giuseppe Puglisi).
The Municipality of Palermo, the Archdiocese of Palermo, the Padre Nostro Reception Center and the John Paul II Foundation found themselves co-designing a nursery school for the Brancaccio community in 2018 to fulfill the dream of Palermo's Martyr Priest Pastor of Brancaccio and founder of the Padre Nostro Reception Center, Blessed Giuseppe Puglisi.
Thanks to the decisive commitment of Avvenire, the daily newspaper of the Italian Bishops' Conference, and a great many donors, it was possible to realize the executive and final design of the Brancaccio kindergarten "I piccoli di Padre Pino Puglisi," which the Padre Nostro Reception Center donated to the City of Palermo on July 4, 2019.
The Italian government, Count 1, also did its part, through the Minister for the South Barbara Lezzi, who through CIPE Resolution 10/2019, allocated a fund of three million euros to the City of Palermo for the construction of the aforementioned kindergarten.
The land is owned exclusively by the City of Palermo, sheet 64 parcels 2006- 2007-2018 and 441.
At this point the dream becomes reality!
But a bitter surprise caught all the promoters of the initiative unprepared: on March 18, 2021, with note No. 211362 signed by the Municipal R.U.P.for the construction of the kindergarten, Arch. Diletta De Angelis Ricciotti, informed the Padre Nostro Reception Center that the kindergarten had inexplicably not been included in the three-year public works 2020/2021/2022 by the City Council.
At this point, an attempt was made to understand the reasons for not including the Brancaccio kindergarten in the three-year public works, since the construction of the Mimosa kindergarten, Domino kindergarten and Galante kindergarten were included instead.
And that is when you enter into a smokescreen, where you can no longer distinguish anything.
One begins to hear all institutional bodies speaking in "politicalese," and the facts so far narrated suddenly become words and then, as Blessed Giuseppe Puglisi and lately Pope Francis said, words only words.
The real risk is to lose the funding and offer an assist to the mafia, to use a football metaphor, or to use another on alternative mobility, a highway to the mafia. It can be reiterated that while institutions are "nodding off," the mafia is moving and doing the deeds(nodding off = maximum movement very little movement).
With about a month to go before the commencement of the events commemorating the XXVIII anniversary of the Martyrdom of Blessed Giuseppe Puglisi on September 15, 2021, we believe there is no better way to repair the damage that to date the Brancaccio community and the memory of the Blessed are suffering.
There is an urgent need to discuss in the City Council the three-year public works plan, to include with an amendment, which we hope will be presented and signed by all political forces, the Brancaccio kindergarten in the three-year public works and for the same Council to approve it.
If unfortunately this is not the case, it will be difficult to explain even to an extraterrestrial why all the political forces in this city, bar none, having the land, the project and even the funds have not built the Brancaccio kindergarten.
The entire City Council today has a civil, but above all, a moral duty to realize that dream that the Brancaccio priest traded with his life, giving it for his little ones, to the vile hand of the Mafia.
For 28 years Our Father's Welcome Center has been trying, with many difficulties, to do its part and will continue to fight without disillusionment, knowing that this battle to date, evil is winning it.
Maurizio Artale
President of Our Father's Welcome Center
Watch the report aired on TG2