Carfora Eugenia

Eugenia Carfora is an Italian school principal who has become a symbol of the fight against early school leaving and juvenile crime. With a degree in Education Sciences and an ISEF diploma, she began her career in 1982 as a physical education teacher, later specialising in education on legality and working in difficult contexts such as the Domitiana area.

Nicknamed the “courageous headmistress”, Carfora is known for her work in Parco Verde di Caivano, one of the largest drug dealing areas in Europe. In 2007, she took over the leadership of the “Viviani” Comprehensive School, finding a situation marked by structural and moral degradation. Since 2013, she has been headmistress of the “Francesco Morano” High School: under her management, the school has gone from just 20 students and the risk of closure to a centre of educational excellence with around 700 students and vocational courses, transforming the building into what she calls a “temple of opportunity”.

Her teaching method stands out for its direct intervention in the local area: Carfora is famous for physically going to look for absent students at their homes, sometimes using a megaphone to call them, convinced that every minute lost could mean handing a young person over to criminal gangs. Despite threats, chronic staff shortages and bureaucracy, she has managed to drastically reduce the school dropout rate at the institute. In 2025, she was in the news for reporting a school employee (known as the “commuting janitor”) for stalking, who was then arrested after being dismissed for irregular absences.

For her tireless civic commitment, she was named Commander of the Republic in 2012 and has received numerous awards, including the “Don Peppe Diana” Award and, in 2025, the “Sì all’Uomo” Award. Her story inspired the Rai television series “La Preside”, starring Luisa Ranieri. Carfora continues to describe herself as an “ant” who works daily to restore dignity and a future to young people in the suburbs.