On April 7, 2025, our friend and colleague Massimo Crucioli left this earthly life for further travels, perhaps to his beloved India.
We worked together for many years in Tor Bella Monaca in the Social Integration Centre (CIS), which Massimo – with Don Franco Monterubbianesi and other operators – literally “set up” (1987) and where with his kind ways and smile he won over the most difficult kids, built a lasting relationship with the Roma community present in the area and always represented a positive reference for the CIS operators, the families and the interlocutors of the services and institutions.
In Tor Bella Monaca he was Director of the Rome project of the III° Program for the Fight against Poverty, promoted by the European Commission until 1994 and tireless animator of the territorial and citizen networks for social inclusion until recently.
In the meantime, he travelled as an activist and president of the European Anti-Poverty Network (EAPN). Thanks to the comparison with colleagues from all over the continent, he shared and consolidated ideas and proposals that then transformed into the recognized measures to fight poverty.
Social Europe has been fundamental in Massimo's career, which has been able to give impetus not only to the Capodarco community of Rome for the valorization of many experiences of inclusion.
It was the time of advocacy (awareness raising and activism for the protagonism of socially disadvantaged groups), when a European social model was being built based on the participation of people in poverty, on connecting the local level to the European one, supporting bottom-up proposals and experiences, valorising good practices, to build Europe together with citizens, and not behind closed doors in Brussels, between institutions.
It is on this basis that Massimo also contributed to the creation of the Italian Connection for the Fight against Poverty (CILAP) of which he was president.
He leaves us with a great void. Have a good trip.
