After Pope Francis' visit to the juvenile prison in Rome, an initiative was born to give work to young prisoners. There is a need to guarantee them an income, but above all to make them feel useful

by Alba Arcuri

C'is a starting point that marks the experience of the pasta factory in the juvenile prison of Casal del Marmo, in Rome. It is the visit of Pope Francis on Holy Thursday 2013, for the washing of the feet with the young inmates. "On that occasion - says Alberto Mochi Onori, head of the ONLUS Gustolibero that started the initiative - the Pope asked the chaplain, Father Gaetano Greco, to do something to give these kids another chance".

Father Greco had already built a family home to house minors from the penal area who were not subject to detention. But he soon realized that without a job opportunity, that is, without a real alternative, they would soon be sucked into their world and perhaps return to crime.

Alberto Mochi Onori remembers the first steps of this experience: a real pasta factory inside the prison, which is giving work to many young people. Alberto remembers that he himself began volunteering in prison when he was just eighteen, after meeting Father Gaetano. The meeting that in some way marked his destiny.

In those years, that is, in 2015, the law had changed: it also granted the possibility to young adults, aged twenty-one to twenty-five, to finish serving their sentences in juvenile prisons for crimes committed when they were minors. This led to an increase in the number of inmates in juvenile institutions, and therefore the need to prepare them for a job, a profession for the “after”.

"Inside the prison," says the cooperative's manager, "there was a building that was no longer in use, because young inmates had organized escapes from there. The prison administration let us use it. Father Gaetano's idea was to create a "simple" production activity. Pasta was our thing. It took us a while to get everything done: permits, fundraising, bank loan. Finally, in 2021, we signed the contract to start work. The building had to be torn down and rebuilt. But it was a good thing: this allowed us to create a professional structure, the Pastificio Futuro. In 2023, the structure was ready: five hundred square meters, professional machinery, four dryers."

«Now we are finally active and ready for large-scale distribution – continues Mochi Onori – we are able to produce a ton and a half or two a day, giving work to about twenty people».  Not only prisoners, but also minors who are not serving their sentences in prison, or those “put to the test” (in Rome there are 1500). The official inauguration of the pasta factory took place on November 10, 2023. Alberto shows the packages of rough pasta. He describes its qualities, the choice of Italian flours, because he is keen to point it out: «We are not asking for charity. We wanted the pasta to be good!». 

Ten years after his first visit, Pope Francis returned to Casal del Marmo, to wash the feet, on Holy Thursday, of those young prisoners. He was the first to receive a package of pasta produced by Pastificio Futuro. "During the Mass, which I also attended," Alberto recalls, "he told these kids that if they have fallen, they have the right to get up and take back their lives. He told them not to let their hope be stolen. We have tried to make this warning our own. It's not easy: not all kids who are given an opportunity are able to seize it. Think of a young person who leaves prison, a foreigner, someone who has nothing, here. But you have to give them a second chance."

The boys receive a salary, proportional to the hours worked. This is an important detail to make them understand that there is “another” way to bring home money. There are no external subsidies, so the salaries are paid with the proceeds from the sale of pasta. Currently, there are less than ten boys employed, then there are the tutor outsiders, who in some cases are former juvenile detainees who, once they have paid their debt to justice, have decided to make the pasta factory their job.

Today the facility, even if adjacent to the prison, has an external entrance on the perimeter wall. And not only for security reasons; the detained boys leave the penal institution, walk a stretch of road and enter the pasta factory from the only entrance. An experience of "external" work therefore, which marries with Francis' warning: no to the culture of waste, and which responds to one of the objectives of the detention regime: that of re-education and social reintegration.

Never a foregone conclusion! It requires responsibility and punctuality from the boys: the work in the pasta factory lasts three or four hours and does not allow for delays.  And then the commitments made to the judge must be respected (for example the duty to sign, when it comes to young people serving their sentences outside of prison). «One of our young people – says Alberto – after a period outside of prison, returned because he had not been able to fulfill the obligations prescribed by the judge.  When I saw him again “inside” – explains Alberto – obviously there was a certain disappointment. I explained to this boy that I really couldn’t do anything more for him. Despite the failure, do you know what he told me? That the seven months spent in prison working in the pasta factory had been the best of his life. That he had learned something and had been useful to someone».