Let's enjoy our heritage
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The Istituto Comprensivo Velletri Centro is in the centre of Velletri, which is the largest town on the south west of the Castelli Romani, along the Appia Road and the southern Francigena Road, 39 Km from Rome...It lays on a hill and it’s surrounded by a wide countryside, near the Artemisio Mountain and the Turano spring falls. It is an active trade centre and an agricultural and cattle market. We have rich cultivations of grapes, olive trees chestnut forests, fertile orchards, and camellia Japonica plants It’s a wine-producing town with famous trademarks, with even the Experimental State Association of Vine growers and a Camellia Spring Festival. The territory’s got very ancient origins, dating from the Palaeolithic Age. The urban phase of the ancient Velitrae dates back to the late seventh century BC .It was inhabited by the Etruscans, the Volsci and then by the Romans. It gave birth to the gens Octavia, from which the Emperor Augustus descends. Thriving city in the imperial era, numerous fact, testimony from Roman times including the remains of the Roman patricians’ "Ville". It was subsequently devastated by the Goths and Visigoths in the fifth century. Thanks to the loyalty to the Holy See, it received favours and privileges by the Popes and could remain an independent city. In the ages it has been involved in the most significant events of Italian history, including the WWII which severely tested the town. Both the Civic and the Diocesan Museums hold lots of pieces of the millenary history of the town. Here and there several places spread on the territory remind people about the past. During the Second World War the citizens of Velletri also contributed with their partisan struggle, and for that reason suffered huge human and material losses, with places that still bear witness to those events.
Because of its several historical places spread all over the area-above all in the centre town-Velletri has been recently defined as “an Open-air Museum”.
Today Velletri has got a population of 53000 people with more than 4000 immigrants(from Romania, China, Maghreb, and Nigeria).
We hold ECDL courses( we’re an accredited examination centre, too), advanced courses of Maths, English and French( with Trinity and DELE exams), and Latin language as well.
In the lower secondary school there are 49 teachers and 515 students. They’re aged 11-14 and some of them are immigrants. The most of them, and even Italian born residents, don’t know the peculiarities of the historical, archaeological and environmental heritage of the place where they live.
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But the real problem of our area is that it's got a very big countryside where people usually don't see each other and they easily have a self-centred attitude and hardly understand other people's needs, rights and roles, and a large number of them are socially and economically disadvantaged. As extra activities we have a ceramic lab, a school volleyball and an athletics team, a school band and a theatre lab in order to match students and families’ needs as much as possible. Youngest students regularly meet the mail police in order to prevent bullying. They and their families can also benefit from a psyco-pedagogical helpdesk.
Some students hardly attend school and parents must be called to care for their children. Even if school is the ideal place for them to socialize and learn about different realities, they don’t rely on school value, don’t know the potentiality of the territory, and don’t trust in it as an opportunity for their future.
Besides a large number of our students need to be more tolerant and respectful towards all people's origins and cultural diversity, but also they should understand the importance of studying and personally contributing to the welfare of the place they live and which is a part of a bigger one, Europe where they will be requested as active citizens.