The Faces of Scampia & Castel Volturno
A common question that one receives during their adolescence is, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Common answers consist of the following; president, ballerina, firefighter, astronaut, or doctor. However, for many children, within the cities of Scampia and Castel Volturno, in the province of Napoli, these answers are nothing but fictional to them. They are merely a false construction of hope that they can escape from the foul cycle that life presents to them. Unfortunately, these children do not choose to be born into these families, under these particular circumstances. The chances of disassociating oneself with the mafia, when one family is already linked, are very improbable. I did not know exactly what my expectations were going to be. I had visited Napoli many times before and I had seen poverty and violence, but in no way different from any other large city, for example; New York City.
When we first arrived in Scampia, we visited the (R)esistenza Anticamorra, where Ciro Corona spoke to us about the local residents and their struggle to fight against Camorra. I saw many faces of men who were hopeful about the future and seemed to have turned their lives around. Additionally, we visited one of the three velas, of Scampia, that still stand today. While we were inside of the velas, unexpectedly, a group of young boys with angry faces came in and began to yell out all the curse words they knew in English, and upon exiting one boy threw a brick at his friend, nearly missing his head. They felt as if we had entered their home without permission, but perhaps we did. We continued our day in Scampia by going to another anticamorra association, Gridas, that provides locals with community service opportunities. Finally ending our day by visiting the ARCI Soccer Club, which provides the youth of Scampia with opportunities to participate in sports rather than getting involved with violence and crime-related activities.
When we arrived at the soccer fields, I saw such purity in many of the faces of the children. Their innocence gleamed and filled the air with sanity. However, some of the younger teenagers’ and parents’ faces were not as kind or inviting.
On the second day of the trip, we headed over to Castel Volturno, with a lot of Nigerian inhabitants. We learned about the history of Castel Volturno and the Casalesi clan’s clash with the Nigerian mafia, and how the two work coincide with one another when it comes to human sex trafficking. These issues of human sex trafficking of primarily Nigerian women, but also women of different races were extremely noticeable in Castel Volturno. Unfortunately, many of the faces I saw in Castel Volturno was filled with emotions of helplessness and gloom.