The association DAMM ZONE MULTIPLE AUTOGESTITE (DAMM means Diego Armando Maradona Montesanto), that in the recent past was a squat centre, is based in a three floors building downtown Naples – as the name of the association tells, it is in the Montesanto block.
The building is a portion of a complex that in the past was a former institute, owned by priests, for deaf people. A big part of this complex collapsed together with the hill where it was built on, during the earthquake of the 23rd November 1980. After the collapse, the building was completely abandoned, even the part that was perfectly practicable.
In 1995 a movie crew that was making a film about a building occupation went inside it and, helped by the population of the block, started a real occupation. This is how the DAMM experience began. Nowadays a large number of activities take place at DAMM, like theatre training (this year boys and girls of Montesanto and Spagnoli blocks, together with those of ITCG Archimede high school in Ponticelli, worked on the play “Instruction fruits” by Lev Tolstoj, directed by Sergio Longobardi and Andrea Saggiomo, that has been presented during the Arrevuoto festival in Naples), rehearsals and representation of theatrical plays, after school activities for children, cinema, a gym for trapeze, juggling and capoeira training. All these activities are open to the children and to the inhabitants of the city, contributing to link the DAMM experience with the people of Naples. This policy has led both to an agreement with the city administration, which has decided to allow the legal use of the building by the DAMM association, and to a spontaneous economic help, given from the block inhabitants, to restructure the building. Today the reconstruction project concern the renewal of the stairs, the renewal of the ground floor, that hosts the space for after school activities, new toilets and new dressing rooms and the renewal of the second floor, that hosts a gym where to practice freestyle wrestling and judo, activities leaded by the sport association Agoghé and by the Italian federation FIJLKAM. This sport association is directed by the Olympic gold medal (Moscow 1980) of freestyle wrestling Claudio Pollio and by other Italian and international champions of this sport. [Official Website]
