The online signature drive to strengthen the UNAR school axis strategy continues: over 23,000 signatures have been collected. Signatories include De Magistris and Pisapia.
Bologna, May 4, 2015 Tomorrow, May 5th, Arcigay will also join the strike against the "Good School" bill under consideration in the Chamber of Deputies. "Teachers and students," explains Flavio Romani, president of Arcigay, "will be the protagonists of a major demonstration tomorrow, called by Italy's major unions. A united protest, the likes of which have not been seen in years, in defense of public schools and their role in our democracy. Arcigay also supports the demands of school workers, students, and others: like all of them, we are concerned that the Italian public school system, already plagued by heavy cuts in recent years, will be further weakened and transformed into a place of competition and inequality, as the reform describes it, definitively losing its fundamental role in the change and growth of our country. We believe that the right to education, enshrined in our Constitution, can only be guaranteed and promoted by a public school system where freedom of teaching, teacher training, smaller classes, and serious and targeted investments are the fundamental elements. The Italian school system undoubtedly needs reform: urgent action is needed on all the factors that lead to educational inequality in our country. Therefore, we must talk about access to education, school dropouts, and the terrible deterrents that the school environment produces, first and foremost bullying, often of homophobic origin. Public schools, as outlined in our Constitution, represent the privileged place where everyone's right to be supported on the path to "the full development of the human person" is recognized, through the removal of "economic and social obstacles" that effectively limit "the freedom and equality of citizens." Precisely for this reason, in recent weeks, LGBT associations (A.ge.do, Arcigay, Arcilesbica, Associazione Radicale Certi Diritti, Equality Italia, Famiglie Arcobaleno, Gay Center) have promoted an online petition (https://www.change.org/p/
The petition, which has already collected more than 23,000 signatures, including those of leading experts in the field and mayors such as Luigi De Magistris and Giuliano Pisapia, calls on the Prime Minister to take decisive action to combat homophobic and transphobic bullying in schools, primarily through the full implementation and strengthening of the "National Strategy for the Prevention and Countering of Discrimination Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (2013-2015)," including with a view to the three-year period 2016-2018, concludes Romani.