Como families march against the school plan: about 300 people from Somaini to Piazza Perretta
On Saturday 17 October the march organised by the Comitato Como a misura di famiglia crossed the lakefront and the centre. Its targets were the Rapinese administration's school network reorganisation, childcare services and the prolonged closure of the lakeside gardens. Translated from Italian.
Translated from the Italian original. Leggi in italiano
The centre of Como was crossed on Saturday 17 October by the march of the Comitato Como a misura di famiglia. The demonstration set off at 10 am from Piazzale Somaini, in the hangar area next to the Sinigaglia stadium, followed the lakefront and the centre streets and ended in Piazza Perretta, within the announced morning window of 10 am to 12 noon.
According to the organisers, about 300 people took part. Present were families, parents and children with banners, placards and slogans, together with teachers, associations and parties. The mobilisation was promoted by the committee that formed around recent months' campaigns on schools, nurseries and city services, gathering parents and citizens opposed to administration decisions they consider penalising for families and neighbourhoods.
#ORABASTA! Chiediamo rispetto, trasparenza, competenza per una Como a misura di futuro
The banner of the Comitato Como a misura di famiglia march
The school plan at the centre of the protest
At the centre of the protest is the school network reorganisation plan of the Rapinese administration. Alongside schools, the committee contests the closure or downsizing of some services, the management of public spaces and the method by which decisions affecting families' daily lives are taken. The protest sits within a heated confrontation that has lasted for weeks, fuelled by the choices on the city's schools, including the Corridoni case.
Green spaces too: the lakeside gardens
The school plan is not the only theme brought into the streets. City greenery is also keenly felt by the committee, with an explicit reference to the prolonged closure of the giardini a lago, the lakeside gardens that remain at the centre of residents' demands.
Saturday's march marks a visible step in a mobilisation that has been running for months: from campaigns on individual services to the streets, with a demand for a different kind of discussion on the choices that concern the city's schools, nurseries and public spaces.
The words on the banner sum up the platform of the day: respect, transparency and competence in decisions, with the city measured against the needs of families and the future of its services. The chosen route, from the square beside the stadium across the lakefront to Piazza Perretta, carried the protest through the busiest places of the city Saturday, in front of residents and visitors. For the committee, the turnout confirms that the issue does not concern a single school or a single service, but the relationship between the administration and families across the whole network of educational services and the city's public spaces.
