Ladies and Gentlemen,
My name is Stefano Diperna and I’m the Mayor of Mola di Bari.
Mola di Bari is a town of almost 27,000 inhabitants in the South of Italy, 20 km far from Bari, the chief city in Apulia.
Our town is by the sea and fishing is one of the most important activities of our citizens; thanks to a temperate climate, we also have diversified agricultural products. In recent years, we are trying to develop tourism economics and, during the last period of our administration, we have been working very hard to promote an industrial expansion, in order to create jobs.
The initiatives of our European Local Democracy Week were directed to all citizens, but above all to children. This is the reason why, since the beginning, we involved schools in the organization of the week. The children discussed in their classrooms about the meaning of Human Rights and then we met them in the Hall of the Municipality Council to confront each other about how Human Rights can be affirmed at a local level.
After this meeting, the students, with their teachers, I must thank a lot for their support in the organization of the week, went through the streets of Mola to meet people and distribute leaflets on Human Rights. We decided to reward their involvement giving them a certificate as Activists of Human Rights.
In order to link the European Local Democracy Week with the European Year of Volunteering, we also organized some Infopoints on Human Rights and on the role of Volunteering in the protection of Human Rights. A lot of associations were involved and I must thank them for their enthusiasm and cooperation.
Organizing the Infopoints, we met a lot of people: the most were convinced about the excellence of the initiatives; someone thought that the protection of human rights is a topic that is very far from the daily life of people from a small Apulian town.
We tried to explain that the attention towards such fundamental issues, to become a common feeling, must be promoted by the basic structures of our society: families, schools and local Institutions. We also stressed the strict link between rights and duties and the idea that, also at a local level, I can’t claim my rights if I’m not conscious about my duties. I don’t know whether these arguments convinced the sceptics or not, but now, after the European Local Democracy Week, they surely have more food for thought. 
As a final act of our week, we organized a convention in our Angevin Castle, decorated with the works of the students. In that occasion, we had the honour to host Mrs Kozara Kati, executive Director of the Albanian Centre for Human Rights, who exposed the participants the main activities of her Centre.
At the end of the convention we conferred an honour to our citizens who went to work as volunteers to help people during the earthquake of 2009 in Abruzzo.
To conclude, we feel very honoured to have participated for the second consecutive year to the European Local Democracy Week and to have gained for the second consecutive time the title of Twelve Star City. We hope we will be here again next year.
Thank you very much.
Stefano Diperna
I lavori sono momentanemente sospesi.
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