Translated automatically by AI from the Italian original.
SYRACUSE / CULTURE & SOCIETY – From Syracuse’s Borgata district to US television screens. A green velvet cushion decorated with a tiger and an elephant, entirely made in the workshops at via Bainsizza 145, was displayed prominently on the popular American programme “The View”, broadcast on ABC. It was presented to the US audience by Whoopi Goldberg, who included the piece among her favourite products in a birthday-themed segment, alongside other creations by the well-known brand Ortigia Sicilia.
Behind this international TV showcase lies the partnership between Ortigia Sicilia and “Le Tele di Aracne”, a social and employment inclusion project promoted by the Municipality of Syracuse and funded by the Ministry of the Interior under the PON Legalità programme.
[Image: A handmade green velvet cushion with decorative embroidery on display inside a tailoring workshop]
The tailoring academy born from a confiscated asset
The Italian velvet covers are cut, sewn and finished inside the tailoring academy set up in the building on via Bainsizza, which was seized from organised crime and returned to the community. Inside the facility, a group of young people, men and women, learn the art of tailoring and put it into practice through real commissions. The programme also involves people in vulnerable social situations, individuals leaving the criminal justice system and women from safe houses, offering them concrete tools for professional independence.
The bond between the Oscar-winning actress—one of the very few figures in global entertainment to have achieved the EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony)—and the city of Syracuse has strengthened over time, to the point that the US star now spends several weeks a year in Syracuse. The partnership with Ortigia Sicilia also renews an institutional relationship first tested during the celebrations for the city’s 2,750th anniversary, when the brand produced an exclusive limited-edition scarf of 275 pieces.
Mayor Francesco Italia’s comments
Mayor Francesco Italia expressed great satisfaction and paid particular tribute to the students, trainers and the partner company for the achievement:
“When we returned the building on via Bainsizza to the city, we wanted anyone who walked through its doors to be able to learn a trade and find a job opportunity. Seeing Whoopi Goldberg present a cushion sewn right there by our girls and boys on television today is the fulfilment of every rosy expectation. Watching those images, I thought about who had that cushion in their hands, the care they put into it, what they must have felt when they recognised it on screen. It is with these people that I want to congratulate myself, on behalf of the city,” the mayor said.
“I thank those who teach and work every day at the academy and Ortigia Sicilia for choosing to produce these cushions in Syracuse and for telling their customers who makes them. It is a choice that adds value to a Municipality of Syracuse project already recognised at national level, but above all to the work of an extraordinary team of people and to the district where that work has come back to life,” Francesco Italia concluded.
