The Locri eco-hostel: sustainable hospitality in a sequestered asset
Just a stone’s throw from the iconic beaches of Locri (RC), there is an eco-hostel in a property that was sequestered from the ‘Ndrangheta mafia in 2005. It was refurbished by the City of Locri using NOP Safety funds under the 2007-2013 programming period. The project, “Giovani in cammino” (Youth on the move), valued at roughly EUR 2 million, was the subject of civic monitoring during the 2014-2015 school year by students of Zaleuco Secondary School in Locri, who named their research team after the project itself.
The educator Enza Agrillo said, “The students of the team “Giovani in cammino” connected immediately with the topic of a property sequestered from the mafia to be used as a youth hostel. It was an instinctive choice.”
For young people growing up in this area of such a great mafia presence, following execution of that project drew a great deal of enthusiasm. Throughout the educational programme, they interviewed current and former administrators of the town involved in planning the project and also contacted organisations that target and raise awareness of organised crime, met with the bishop of the Locri-Gerace Diocese, and even attracted the attention of local media.
“For them, it was important to feel involved first-hand in something that concerned adults,” Ms Agrillo recalled. After an initial experience that Agrillo called “a sort of road test”, the following year the same team monitored the project for the youth activity centre, giving themselves the team name People of Tomorrow. This led to disappointment after the first call for tenders in 2016 to award the asset went unanswered. The project was concluded, the property ready and furnished, but, as the Giovani in cammino team noted in their civic monitoring report published on Monithon, there were major weaknesses or risks that could compromise its efficacy, not related to delays or problems in implementation.
After a second call for tenders, management was awarded to Goel, a community of businesses, social coops, and individuals established in the area in 2003 that works for change and development in Calabria through employment, social service, and active opposition to the mafia in order to demonstrate that morality is not just right, but can also be effective. Just ten days after awarding management of the property, the plumbing and elevator were damaged. “This hit the students hard, as they felt a sense of powerlessness,” Agrillo said.
In February 2017, when the property was finally handed over to Goel, the students had already moved away from the area to study in Cosenza or in northern Italy, but Ms Agrillo was able to involve six other students from another of the school’s fourth-year classes, who took part in the inauguration and documented the day in a video in which they interviewed people such as Vincenzo Linarello, the coop’s founder.
“In the face of intimidation, the authorities and Goel called for an inauguration with great pomp and ceremony that involved the students,” Ms Agrillo recounted. In Locri, that day is remembered as the day on which the keys were handed to Goel, sending a clear message that they would persist and could not be intimidated.
Today, the sequestered asset has been transformed into modern lodging with 15 triple-occupancy rooms with air conditioning and en suite bathrooms. After the length preparations, the facility can be booked through the tour operator for responsible tourism I Viaggi del Goel. The eco-hostel also serves secondary schools in central and northern Italy and other groups that come to “learn lawfulness” here in Calabria, beginning with these positive experiences in this area.
In September 2021, the renovated eco-residence was presented as a model of social and environmental sustainability thanks to a project financed by the Con il Sud and Peppino Vismara foundations.
