At the age of 9 from Nocera Inferiore, in Campania, he moved with his family to Bergamo, in Lombardy.
Mario is a good man who has always worked and dedicates himself to fishing in his spare time. He does not drink and does not use any drug.
He loves dogs and is a lover of fishing and sunglasses, whose lenses, as he explains, are important for a good fisherman, to observe the movement of the float and “shoe” the fish at the right moment.
Mario: “That was until they stole all my possessions in June 2019.”
The story
A few years ago Mario met a woman and fell in love with her. From the relationship with her a boy was born.
One day the woman expressed the desire to reunite with her maternal family, in Sicily, where she soon went, taking her child with her.
Meanwhile, two criminal proceedings had been initiated against the child’s father: one at the Brescia juvenile court (competent for Bergamo) and one in Palermo who later was declared incompetent. Mario was informed of this procedure in Palermo only after the hearing at which he was unable to attend.
It was a bolt from the blue. Mario was incredulous.
The competent court was in Brescia and provided only a prohibition of cohabitation and no limit to parental responsibility or to the meetings of the father with the child. Seven months after the hearing, a decree was finally issued, with immediate effect, allowing Mario to see his son again, after 7 months of total alienation had passed. Unfortunately, difficulties such as distance, time and money greatly limit the chances of creating a true bond between father and child.
Mario was anxious to see and talk to his son but the meetings did not begin.
He wrote to social services to activate the meetings in “neutral space”, as established by the decree. Only after two and a half months and almost a year from the last time, he managed to see his son again. He also discovered the reason of the late activation. It was because the social worker did not deliver the decree to the operators of the “neutral space”.
Three years later, Mario still suffers hostilities from his ex partner and denounces the absence and incompetence of the social services involved.
The hostilities.
Since the beginning of this story, Mario has suffered a lot of bad things.
One day the ex-partner went to his house, with her father and a friend, and took many things from him, causing him damage of over 30 thousand euros between fishing rods and 30 pairs of glasses, alone from his collection, all the work equipment and his own memories.
Mario: “they have canceled my identity. I no longer have my life, my passions.”
Some time later, from a photograph, Mario learned of his son baptism. The ex-partner had done everything secretly, without informing him.
Mario: “Together with her lawyer they sent a false letter to the priest to be able to baptize my son without even telling me”.
It is true that consent of only one parent is enough to baptize a minor. However the other parent should at least be informed. If you baptize your child it is assumed that you are a Christian. Well, as such, respect for the role of the other parent is also assumed.
Having discovered the baptism of the baby, Mario turned to many people asking for information to know at least where the kid had been baptized but he had to do a lot of research before being able to find the church in which his son had received the sacrament.
When he found out, he told the story to the priest and the bishop who were stunned. They were in fact very supportive and even helped him by writing the truth in a letter, sent to him through the Vatican Bursar’s Office.
The decree and the social services.
On July 25th, was notified a decree which was confirming the video call meetings to be done in the (physical) presence of an educator and also established the terms for delivering the reports on the aforementioned meetings between father and son, that were not activated.
Mario: “I interrupted the calls in July to safeguard the good of my son, waiting for the services, among them, to organize these calls.
On December 13th, 2021 another decree confirmed the video call meetings. On January 25th, the definitive sentence established video call meetings in “neutral space” even with two operators to monitor closely but have not yet activated them. “
A rather complicated fact.
In short, if a father calls the mother of his son to find out about him, he can be denounced for stalking. If he does not call he can be considered a careless, unloved and irresponsible father.
There is something to go crazy about.
Then Mario called the manager of Solidalia (social services) to request the activation of the meetings by video call at the scheduled times. She replied that they had not activated the meetings because he had never contacted the operators of Marsala. She also said that from that moment, July 20th 2021, they were no longer in charge.
It is absurd that a parent should call social services to ask for a sentence to be carried out by a court.
Mario waited and hoped to see his son but without succeeding.
Desperate, he began a protest by spreading his story on social networks, on the street, asking for help.
He created a Facebook profile named “Papà Coraggio” where he publishes updates on his situation and helps to spread awareness about the system of the” deviant “social services, about the violence they use on parents and children and their modus operandi.
At this point, the social services of Marsala communicated to the Palermo judge that Mario was publicly denouncing, by publishing protest videos and that, in this way, he involved the child. For this reason they asked the judge if they should activate video calls or not.
Mario: “It is a serious act of retaliation by social services using my son as a weapon.”
In a subsequent report to the judge, they argued that the decree did not say that they had to be the ones to activate the video call meetings, and asked how to proceed on the matter because for them the decree did not activate this methodology.
Mario: “They try to change things to protect themselves after I have publicly reported them.”
It is time to ask who are the people employed by social services and what competence they have seen that they do not even know the services they offer and for which they are paid, such as the psycho-pedagogical path and the mediation that they have never activated.
Mario: “The psycho-pedagogical path and mediation was still sentenced but I fear that like it happened in the past, they will not activate them and so there will still be an important help and evaluation of my parenting skills and resolution of the conflict with my son’s mother.”
The protest.
Every weekend Mario publicly protests. Every Saturday and Sunday he goes on hunger strike. In front of the social services office, in front of the CAF (family action cooperative) in Romano di Lombardia (BG.). He first informs the police headquarters of his protest and then denounces the objectivity of the relationship, false record and so on.
NAP: “What are you asking for?”
Mario: “I would like not to lose the bond with my child. I would like to build a good relationship. I would like to take him with me, maybe even fishing, I want to give him the love he deserves and a beautiful and peaceful relationship. I want him to know that I always love him and that I have never abandoned him and I never will. ”
There are other parents who find themselves in a similar situation and all without obtaining concrete help from the institutions. It happens that if you tell something, if you report, they punish you.
Mario: “I opened the Facebook profile Papà Coraggio because it is important that we talk about this. Unfortunately, like other fathers, I am in a dramatic situation.
The individual is fought in court but there is a need to raise awareness. People who are involved in systems like me are afraid to react so as not to lose the little breath they leave them, with which they keep them oppressed. ”
NAP: “How is your relationship with your son?”
Mario: “I’ll tell you something. On July 6th there was the hearing in Palermo. Immediately after the hearing, I left for Marsala and met my son in the afternoon and the next morning. At the meeting, with me and the child, there were the educator, the social worker and, outside, there was the grandmother. My son only wanted his dad (papà) next to him. Nobody was to get close to him but me.
The morning after I bought a chocolate cake. I promised him we would celebrate his birthday. He ate with taste. He messed everything up and his grandmother wanted to clean him with a wet wipe but my son replied:
– No! Papà. ”- ( No! Dad does it. ed).
Then he took the wipe, ran up to me and said:
– Papà! (Dad!)-
When we were playing the slide he wanted no one to come near us.
This and more is all recorded in the briefs delivered to the judges. Children hear and see with their heart. My son understands and feels that I love him very much. And this hurts me even more because when I go away I know that he feels I love him but I cannot build a bond with him because these people hinder me. ”
NAP: “What do you fear for your child?”
Mario: “Unfortunately, what I fear for him is already happening because it is unfair and unnatural for a child to grow up without his father, especially when his father loves him. I do not ask for anything impossible, only that these meetings, which have been decreed by the judge, will be finally activated in order for me to create a bond with him, for his good in the first place. ”
Finding the ex-partner and his child in Sicily, Mario asked the judges to be able to hold protected meetings in Bergamo once a month. He is willing to pay (reimbursement and in total privacy of his wife and child) for travel and accommodation.
Mario: “Given the opposition of the mother, even if she works in shifts, the court ruled protected meetings for several days near the weekend, until a bond is re-established. The services must encourage and support the father and son up to make it autonomous. ”
Mario doesn’t want to see the child alone or with his ex-partner just because he doesn’t trust her. Therefore he prefers that everything is done in total transparency in order to avoid false and instrumental reports.
Mario: “After all the false reports that my ex makes me, the wickedness she makes me, let’s imagine what she can invent if we are alone …! I prefer to see my son in the presence of an educator, with a witness. This possibility would also be convenient because in Bergamo they also meet on Saturdays. She has work shifts so she can manage herself better. Then it would also be right for the child to know his paternal grandparents and cousins… ”
It also appears that the child’s relations with the paternal family are hindered.
But the social services respond to these complaints that the relationship with grandparents is not mentioned in the decree.
They, who should have invited the child’s mother to maintain a communicative relationship with the father of her child, would have had to follow a procedure in favor of an improvement. In fact they never did all this.
Mario’s protest is against the system. He denounces social workers, child protection, mayors who do not care.
The sentences issued by the judges are not carried out, and thus the law is not respected.
Meanwhile, time goes by and the child grows up without seeing his dad. And so the rights of the child are not protected primarily by the social services themselves.
NAP: “Does this happen out of revenge, for carelessness, or for incompetence ?”
Mario: “Social services were sentenced to implement mediation paths but they never did. They have never activated the psycho-pedagogical path. They wrote to the judges who do not know how to activate it after my constant requests when, in reality, the ASL does it in their counseling centers and the CAF does too .. ”
The covid emergency, by activating the meetings in neutral space, would have partially solved the logistical problem of travel for commuting.
The current situation.
According to the law, Mario can see his child twice a week in the presence of an educator. This was decreed on July 25th, 2021. But he hasn’t seen him since July 27th, 2021.
Why the social services don’t activate video calls?
Why don’t they allow him to establish an ongoing relationship with the son he loves and whom he has never stopped worrying about?
Why the social services do not all do their job properly, and instead of mediating they sow hatred, they declare falsehood, harming the child they have to protect?
Unfortunately, like so many other fathers who are victims of such a sick system of “deviant” social services, Mario continually suffers retaliation for having publicly denounced facts. He is forced to face false reports and false accusations and promptly prove that everything is already invented long before his protest, only because he contested their actions.
All this means money that goes away, protocols to follow, bureaucracy and long lead times.
Times of waiting and silences that will indelibly affect the life of the child as well as that of his mother and father.
Events follow one another and perhaps things can be adjusted for Mario, we wish him and all the parents who suffer the deviation of the system that everything will be soon fixed.]
To be updated about this story visit the profile of Papà coraggio on Faebook .
