“Sport for all – Prisons”. The project for minors in charge of the IPM Fornelli was presented in Bari.

 The "Sport for all - Prisons" project was presented this morning, promoted by the Minister for Sport and Youth through the Department for Sport and carried out in collaboration with Sport and health to promote sport as a tool and opportunity for re-education for prisoners through the strengthening of sporting activities in penitentiary institutions for adults and minors.

The project will bring sport among the minors in charge of the “Nicola Fornelli” Penal Institute for Juveniles in Bari for two years and will be implemented by the amateur sports association Street is Culture.

Capoeira, skateboarding, breakdancing and parkour they will be used as vehicles for personal and social growth, training students in perseverance and transmitting a new example of education and a new model of psychophysical energy with which to express their passions and achieve their goals.

The presentation of the project was attended by the municipal councilor for Sport Pietro Petruzzelli, the director of the Juvenile Justice Center of Bari Dorella Quarto, the director and head of the educational area of ​​the IPM Fornelli, Nicola Petruzzelli and Marco Brancucci, the president of Street is Culture amateur sports association Magid Motamedian and the Sports and Health coordinator Francesco Toscano.

"This project was born from the sensitivity of Sport and Health, which decided to allocate resources for sporting activities also within prisons, in this case juvenile prisons – he said Pietro Petruzzelli -. We are talking about unstructured, unconventional sports disciplines, such as breakdancing and skateboarding, which can interest everyone, even minors in the recovery and rehabilitation phase. The aim is to offer them new opportunities, including work-related ones, which will help them reconnect with society once they leave the penitentiary institution. The collaboration of the administration with the Fornelli institute is essential to develop synergies aimed at the recovery and rehabilitation of those who have made mistakes and want to reintegrate into society. I therefore invite all the sports organizations in our area to apply for the Sport and Health tenders, in particular this one which concerns prisons, the next tender for which will be released next week.".

"This announcement arises from the unanimous will of two State administrations, the Ministry of Justice - Department of Juvenile Justice and the Department for Sport through Sport and Health, with the possibility, for amateur sports associations recognized by the State, to also apply for activities in favor of minors in the external penal area – he continued Nicola Petruzzelli -. We would like many to respond to the next call for our territories, the ones from which our children come. The objective is not only to have our inmates practice sports but also to implement sporting activity in the territories because sport is a virtuous activity that manages to intercept the needs, requirements, shortcomings and interests of children, taking them out of the vicious circuits of delinquency and crime in which they are sometimes ensnared. Bringing sport to the suburbs is what is needed. The Caivano decree, number 153, tackles crime on two fronts: that of the repression of criminal phenomena and that of the promotion of spaces for positive aggregation, where children must be intercepted. Deviance must be tackled upstream, taking care of minors together with families, territories and civil communities, addressing the causes and origins of the problems. The criminal law is an epiphenomenon, an accident that must become just a segment of the children's lives, which begins and ends as soon as possible. Minors are our children and we, together with health and social services, must take care of them. Alfredo Carlo Moro, juvenile judge and brother of Aldo Moro, argued that we take on the pathology of deviance, we become the deviance professionals while the causes and origins of juvenile deviance and distress are always upstream, in a pathology of human relations that we should all take responsibility for".

"We participated in this tender together with the Fornelli juvenile prison with which we had already developed a project over the past two years – he said Magid Motamedian -. These are well-known sports, but what was not known was their application in detention contexts. And this is the turning point: taking these disciplines and bringing them to prison environments. They are extremely engaging disciplines for minors, because they were born on the street, all born in America (except parkour born in France), between New York and Los Angeles, where the urban culture of the ghetto reigned supreme. They are places where culture has generated something that has gone beyond sport. These disciplines share a common cultural apparatus, the boy is "pulled into" these sports and learns the rules of non-competitive sharing and being together, recovering the relational dimension that he has been missing."

"It is a project that will develop over the course of two years and which includes four disciplines that we will implement immediately because we will be operational in ten to fifteen days with the first two disciplines, capoeira and skateboarding, while we will plan the subsequent ones during the year – he underlined Marco Brancucci -. There is a very high expectation on the part of our kids, starting from those who have already experimented with sports in past years. Meanwhile, there is a positive fact on the part of us educators who have learned to open up to these new sporting activities, overcoming the prejudices associated with these which are considered street sports. We discovered the value of street culture capable of bringing kids together around a teacher, with mutual respect and overcoming their physical, disciplinary and relational limits". 

"Sport and health was born four years ago, it is a company of the Ministry of Economy under the Presidency of the Council of Ministers – he concluded Francesco Toscano -. We deal with social sport, grassroots sport, sport in schools and high-risk neighbourhoods. In Bari, projects have started at the Redentore, the San Paolo, the Palamartino, as well as in Cerignola, San Severo, Bitonto. The Sport di tutti – Carceri project is present throughout Italy to promote sporting activity in prisons. In Puglia, five prison projects have already been awarded, including the women's prison in Trani where we are doing rugby, yoga and physical activity. All activities are free and are financed entirely by the State through Sport and Health. Next week there will be the new call for tenders for which we hope for increasingly wider participation from sports associations".