The Matera student festival ended around midnight, with the presence of Bobo Sind on stage, which took place today in the open space in front of the churchyard of the church of San Pio One of the neighborhoods built with the laws on the redevelopment of the Sassi districts. As is fitting, the day began a little quietly in the late morning with the arrival on site one by one of the students from the various institutes in the city. And under a summer heat that arrived early, after the greetings of the authorities, there was the Dino Paradiso show which was followed by lots of music to the rhythm of which the square went wild, appropriately watered to alleviate the heat.
Then the morning program ended with the long-awaited and engaging Holy Color. And after the break for lunch, it resumed in the early afternoon with the performance from the stage of a series of bands, rappers and soloists who demonstrated how much talent there is in the folds of this youth who deserve to be valorized in a less occasional way . Perhaps identifying public spaces in which to allow them to carry out rehearsals throughout the year and, in the summer programme, perhaps contemplating setting up a stage in a square in the city on which they can take turns performing during the weekends. An event with a substantially low cost but with a high return on participation and valorisation of indigenous creativity. We would have liked to mention everyone who performed.
For this reason we had asked the speaker on stage to provide us with the list of the setlist, which however did not arrive. We’re sorry. But we will do so in case it reaches us later, as it seems appropriate to leave a specific trace of these talented young people in the city news. In the face of widespread opinion that this youth is generally superficial, devoid of values and contents that instead emerged from some lyrics of original songs performed.
At the end of the party the “break the lines”, with a great desire for summer. But not everyone is out of school today. Some will still have to study for exams. For everyone, the invitation to collaborate, between youth groups, associations, local authorities, for a new edition of the Students’ Festival, possibly an expression of the entire school world, which today is still not completely involved. Ambitious design, but certainly actionable for the next edition. Good work.
Today there was a great desire to be there, to be involved and to cast many networks of collaboration in a society that is changing rapidly in a land, Basilicata, which has to deal with the emigration of young people who are the future of the territory, also of Matera itself which is experiencing the long wave of tourism. But if the conditions are not created, the opportunities to remain are uphill. And so the voice that emerged from the words shouted on that stage by these new high school students, also from the province of Matera, must be listened to, certainly to have fun but also to reflect on the present and the near future which will lead to making choices, probably to study outside, depending on assessments and opportunities. And so there needs to be responses to these stimuli to help “students” to design their own future which, hopefully, can be here. But for this it would be necessary for central and territorial governments to invest more in public schools, first of all, on quality of studies, training and research. A deficiency in the country system, at the center as well as in the periphery, resulting from the absence of a far-sighted growth plan that could slow down the demographic decline, the emigration of many “brains” and professionalism from the territory to abroad. Far from Made in Italy and meritocracy… From this Student Day, however, a small but beautiful signal has arrived to reverse the trend, with spaces dedicated to the reality of “solidarity citizenship”, to culture, to professional orientation… with lots of music to act as a soundtrack.
Registered in the register of journalists of Basilicata.
