There is also 19-year-old Sofia Gentile, originally from Vittoria, among the twenty-nine new Standard Bearers of the Republic awarded by President Sergio Mattarella. Sofia obtained the honor for having been able to convey the importance of the culture of legality through music thanks to her project called “We can”.
Sofia’s project
A project with which Sofia – who studies in Padua – has tried, through music, to overcome all those behaviors of oppression that call into question civil coexistence and its rules. At the heart of the project is a choir made up of children from difficult socio-economic backgrounds who attend the neighborhood oratory, to whom Sofia tries to convey the importance of harmony. If one voice overwhelms the others, the group is out of tune. His energy has infected, in a short time, many volunteers, now committed, through the universal language of music, to talking about legality, feelings and sustainability.
“Music against oppression”
“At the center there is music, singing, a tool to overcome those behaviors of oppression that call into question civil coexistence and its rules – said Sofia in an interview with La Nazione -. We have a choir of 15 people aged 4 to 12. Young people who live very different and difficult cultural and social situations. In a choir there must be no abuse, we must all create harmony together. I believed that the musical and choral experience was the best way to overturn the somewhat selfish mentality that I had encountered in my area. It is first and foremost an educational project and open to all the kids in the neighborhood who share a goal and compare: two worlds that talk to each other and help each other.”
“On a personal level, the direct feedback is the awareness of wanting to give back to my land what it has given me in terms of opportunities. In relationships with others, it is the project we have built. At the beginning, being able to get children to greet each other by shaking hands was a feat, today it is a reality.”
