“The suburbs are the city’s adolescence.”
A commemorative book of our society reduced to a comatose state in its human and social component, and we say it without too many words. To keep it alive the commitment of women and men of the third sector, who without any personal gain dedicate themselves to their neighbor and to cover the shortcomings of the institutions, to ensure that the latter are not left to themselves, humiliated and set aside.
But who are the last ones? The homeless we see on the side of the streets? No, or at least not only. They are an increasingly large part of the population, which includes those who find themselves out of work overnight and are forced to queue at food distribution centres, parents of children with disabilities who do not have the adequate material support at home and at school, the underpaid and undeclared workers, single mothers and separated fathers, and many other categories for which the word rights does not seem to apply.
The author points out that the spectrum of the latter also extends to those who write these words (and forgive us also to those who read them) because it is only a matter of luck rather than personal merits the possibility of living a peaceful life.
Having to take care of a loved one, having a disability, being born in a suburb with no possibility of a social ladder because at sixteen you have to go to work to bring money home and many other difficult situations are not due a merit or a demerit of person.
The journalistic style of the text makes it easy to read and accessible to all ages. We would like excerpts from the book to be included in school anthologies, due to the enormous civic impact they can have in the education of tomorrow’s citizens.
To ignite awareness and the will to live in a more just society in those who will be called to build that society.
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Cristina Carpinelli, Where are you all?, Altreconomia, Milano, 2023