An important event and a moving meeting were held at the’ Hotel Tiziano e dei Congressi, Lecce.

The students of Years 7, 8, and 9 of the lower secondary school of the institute International House Oxford Group Lecce, On 7th March, they had the opportunity to meet the senator, former President of the Senate and writer Pietro Grasso, in dialogue on the themes of legality and the fight against the mafia.

The meeting began at 15:00 in the Donatello room of the Grand Hotel Tiziano in Lecce with a welcome from the director Anna Grazia Buttazzo and the headteacher Carmen Indirli, where the students were accompanied by their teachers. The pupils' families, who are always attentive and interested in the numerous proposals that enrich the Montessori International School's educational offering, were also invited and attended in large numbers.

‘My friend Giovanni’

At the end of the meeting, the students had the opportunity to receive an autograph on their “My Friend Giovanni” book”, already widely discussed and explored during lesson hours, with the support of the teachers who oversaw the project, Teresa Romano, Anna Paola Carluccio, and Elena Carluccio. In particular, teacher Teresa Romano, a member of the Demea association which made the event possible, played a fundamental role in the organisation, actively collaborating in the creation of the programme.

“There are stories that do not end, stories that cannot end because the journey is too important and the purpose is fundamental. My friend Giovanni tells a story that cannot end because it is, first and foremost, the story of a friendship. But it is also the story of a professional relationship built on sharing: time and spaces, intense study, immense fears, great joys, small steps forward and bitter frustrations. The book you hold in your hands is very precious because it is the story of a friendship and a professional relationship intertwined, and it is a story that concerns us. What this book recounts has a beginning but does not end with the death of Giovanni Falcone, because, thirty years after the Capaci massacre, Pietro Grasso's gaze is fixed on the future, a future that opens up to all that has yet to be done and which could be realised.”

In the 30th anniversary of the Capaci massacre, Pietro Grasso tells the young people about Giovanni Falcone, their friendship and the many battles fought alongside the symbolic judge. fight against the mafia.

The Falcone Tree

Furthermore, the event was enhanced by the presentation to the school, from the hands of Pietro Grasso, of the’ “Falcone Tree”, a cutting from the tree that grows in Palermo under the magistrate's house. The Carabinieri of the Environmental Unit oversaw the handing over of the shrub.

During the meeting, moderated by journalist Marco Renna, the young people presented the former magistrate with Picture books prepared in the past few days, one made by Years 7 and 8 (they summarised and translated into images the book they had read) and the other one made by the first-year middle school students, who interviewed parents, grandparents and other adults, asking them if they remembered where they were when the news of the Capaci and Via D'Amelio massacres was announced.

The boys of First Media They also built a tree, on whose leaves they had written their thoughts on legality. Another group wrote a newsletter on the themes of the mafia and those who fought it at the cost of their lives.

The pupils asked their questions and made a commitment to be “young Falcones” to contribute every day to the fight against illegality.