CHANGE LANGUAGE

Modena, middle schools on the front line against mafias and gangmasters with avatars and roleplay.

Four schools involved in innovative projects to promote legality through the metaverse and artificial intelligence.

Modena, middle schools on the front line against mafias and gangmasters with avatars and roleplay.

With the public notice of the Municipality, the projects on gangmastering, mafias and metaverse of four middle schools will be funded: Cavour, San Carlo, Mattarella e Paoli.

Avatars in virtual reality will provide advice on how to protect oneself from digital risks, inform on the ways in which mafias can exploit new technologies and suggest how to prevent and combat criminal behavior. But the subject of further study will also be the working conditions of people, starting from news stories of gangmastering, through the use of roleplay, that is, the assignment of roles to experience first-hand what one feels in certain situations.

These are the main focuses of the projects of the four middle schools that will be financed by the Municipality of Modena within the framework of thePublic notice for the implementation of initiatives and projects to promote legality and fight against the mafia in the 2024-2025 school year. The call, aimed at public and private secondary schools in the municipal area, has made available up to a maximum of 4 thousand euros per project, to cover the costs incurred by each school, net of additional contributions received from other bodies and institutions. The project activity had to be developed on the themes of "Organized crime and labor exploitation" or "Mafia, Metaverse and Artificial Intelligence", through the production of a text of maximum 4 thousand characters (a research or a journalistic text), of various figurative arts (photographs, drawings, posters) or multimedia works (videos, short films, podcasts, musical pieces), possibly with associations and organizations operating in the municipal territory. The contributions assigned, which amount to 13 thousand 910 euros, will be paid following the reporting of the schools to be submitted by the end of July.

“It is important to spread the anti-mafia culture starting from the younger generations – highlights the Councillor for Legality Victor Ferrara – for this reason the Municipal Administration supports the development of initiatives for education on legality through the call for proposals addressed to schools. These projects, which see students actively involved in the study of the themes and the creation of papers, will be an opportunity for enrichment for the kids that will contribute to the development of their civic sense, making them more responsible and respectful of democracy”.

The project proposals, three with projects on the metaverse and one on gangmastering, came from the lower secondary schools Mattarella (IC3), Cavour (IC1), San Carlo (IC9) and Paoli (IC8), they obtained from 80 to 100 points. The projects will be sponsored by the Municipality of Modena and presented on public occasions. The works produced will also be published in a dedicated area of ​​the institutional website.

In particular, the school Cavour presented a project entitled “Artificial Intelligence: Technology Fights the Mafia Online!”, which involves six classes (two first, two second and two third), whose main theme is legality in the contemporary context, analyzing the role of organized crime in the era of the metaverse and theArtificial intelligence (AI), in addition to the protection of personal data and privacy, to the exploration of the concept of “digital legality”. Through the use of the metaverse and AI, short informative videos will be created with talking “avatars”: students will delve into the manipulation and recruitment tactics adopted on digital platforms by criminal organizations, learning to recognize warning signs and suspicious behavior in online interactions. To implement the project, the school intends to avail itself of the collaboration of Digital gym of the Municipality.

The school San Carlo has presented a project entitled “Legality, work and migratory flows: the Caporalato”, which involves the six third-year classes of the Institute. The students will have to inform themselves on current issues that undermine respect for human rights, they will have to study in depth the goals of goal 10 of the 2030 agenda “Reduce inequalities – Implement safe and regular migration policies”, and goal 8 “Decent work and economic growth – adopt immediate and effective measures to eliminate forced labor, put an end to modern slavery and human trafficking”. They will examine the working conditions in different contexts, not only in agriculture, but also in construction and textiles with Asian mafias, they will experiment by impersonating various situations and will create laminated flyers/bookmarks to distribute in classes and place in school environments. Collaboration with the association is planned “Free against the mafias” and with local trade unions.

The school Mattarella has presented a project entitled “Limes: beyond the digital border”, which involves the involvement of all the classes of the Institute on the topic of the risks of the web linked to the presence of mafias and criminal organizations online that scientifically use the metaverse, artificial intelligence and new technologies to increase their profits. The creation of an informative video is planned in which an “avatar” will underline how in the future the metaverse and the virtual economy will have an ever-increasing weight, requiring ever greater attention to prevent and combat criminal behavior. The involvement of some military personnel from the Guardia di Finanza.

The school Paoli presented a project entitled “Paoli – Connected to legality”, which involves the involvement of seven classes of the Institute in the autonomous production by the students of an essay (text, drawings and video) to be published online on the school website, with the aim of promoting the culture of legality and active citizenship. The students will be invited to reflect on their behavior and on the complex social, human, cultural and political reality in order to be able to interpret and evaluate it, as well as to use communication technologies in a conscious and responsible way to search for information and to interact with other people.

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