"Honorable President, you are certainly aware of the battle to save the student residence of the Ex Civis which, to create offices and car parks, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs wants to remove from public availability, closing the student accommodation forever, destroying the historic university theater Eduardo De Filippo and by transferring an educational project of high cultural and social value such as that of Officina delle Arti Pier Paolo Pasolini".
This was written by Daniele Silvestri, who promoted the Let's Save Ex-Civis and Teatro Eduardo de Filippo Committee, in an open letter to Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. "Last March 6th, inside the theater and the structure, our Committee organized, together with the students, a large demonstration. After the first positive reactions, however, everything seems to have fallen into oblivion. You will also know that Sport and Health and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are investing 22 million euros for the redevelopment works on Building B and 32 million euros for the works on Building A. With much lower spending, probably covered by the Pnrr, both buildings could have been redeveloped to give back to the city a large university student residence, equipped with services and enriched by the educational and cultural center of Officina Pasolini, with the beautiful Teatro De Filippo inside. This battle sees the Lazio Region, the Municipality of Rome and the Municipality on our side XV, the students, the artists and the world of culture, many citizens. The only ones left to fight us are the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Sport & Health. Both answer to the government of the country. For this reason - he continues - I am addressing you personally, President Meloni, with the hope that you can intervene to block an incomprehensible project, wrong both in substance and in method. A project for which, moreover, you are not at fault, having only inherited it, but which you have the power to stop to prevent the dismantling of a reality that really works, of which we can be proud: the hundreds of beds, the Officina project Pasolini and the theatre".
And he adds: "I'll try to unlock a memory for you: in October 2010 the then "Eduardo De Filippo University Theater Laboratory" staged a show, directed by Enrique Vargas, in which one spectator at a time was led through a journey narrative entirely in the dark, led by blind actors. One of those spectators was her, as a young youth minister. They say she left the theater with tears in her eyes and has made a contribution to the theater for some years held his lessons, offers shows for free, a rare case of virtuous use of resources from the European Social Fund. Sequestering this small public space to make it a conference room for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which is located in the largest building in Italy. (after the Royal Palace of Caserta), is truly offensive. Our battle continues because we want to put the actors on the field, starting with his government, faced with the very serious responsibility of denying university students hundreds of beds, of destroying a theater with over 50 years of history, to debase a quality proposal like that of Officina Pasolini to create offices and car parks, i.e. closed, private spaces, no longer accessible to the public, to citizens. I ask you to intervene to prevent this terrible and irreparable mistake and to vindicate this choice. In any case... We won't stop."