The Mare Nostrum Dike was called Oceanis 473 when smugglers used it for human trafficking from Turkey. Now it is a motorsail for promoting the culture of legality. It landed at the Cala tourist pier in Palermo and today, May 23, 200 students from Sicilian schools will come on board and will meet Umberto, a boy from the Penal Area of Naples who with Mare Nostrum is completing a process of reintegration into society. “I’m leaving a turbulent past behind me and I’m living a happy present” says Umberto who is just 19 years old. “This association has become a family for me. With this project I feel I am finally useful to society.” Umberto won an Archeoclub scholarship to become an underwater technical operator. He fell totally in love with the sea and has already participated in some seabed cleaning projects.
The project
The project is promoted by Archeoclub with the Department of Juvenile Justice of Campania, the Navy, the Ministry of Justice and the Military Corps of the Order of Malta. “There are currently 20 kids involved in recovery projects with the Mare Nostrum, a boat that takes its name from the Marine Department of Archeoclub d’Italia, but we hope they can become hundreds” – says Giuseppe Ragosta, of Archeoclub. To the name Mare nostrum we have added that of Dike, the goddess of justice. The sea is the starting point for training children from the penal area of Campania both from an educational and professional point of view and giving them a second chance. The objective is social recovery through knowledge of cultural heritage and the rediscovery of beauty.
The program
Also traveling on board the boat is Flora Rizzo, national vice president of ArcheoClub D’Italia: “The Dike boat was confiscated from smugglers and entrusted to the Archeoclub d’Italia by the Court of Ragusa as a tool for the implementation of educational projects, educational and cultural courses based on legality, the fight against cultural and environmental illiteracy and in favor of the inclusion and social reintegration of young people. On the morning of Thursday 23 May, guided tours are scheduled for 200 students inside the vessel moored in the port of Palermo and on the quay in front, where an information reception space will be set up. Students will be able to learn, with targeted explanations and with the support of photographic images, both the history of the use of the vessel in the hands of the “merchants” of human lives, and the new purposes of use focused on education on legality”.
