Kappa FuturFestival is at the side of Specchio dei tempi to help the victims of the war in Ukraine. Part of the proceeds of the electronic music festival, which will be held in Turin from the 1st to 3rd of July, will go to Specchio’s solidarity projects. But that’s not all: all KFF participants can join the fundraiser by making a donation.
Over 6,000 people and companies have already responded to Specchio’s appeal to support Ukrainian refugees. When the conflict broke out, the La Stampa readers’ Foundation immediately launched a subscription and took action with solidarity initiatives in support of the civilians, both in receiving them in Italy and in helping those who do not want to leave the country.
In Cernivci, a small Ukrainian town on the border with Romania, a village has been built to house and refresh 1,800 refugees every day, thanks to more than 1,000 square metres of canteen, clinic, kitchens, beds, play areas and air-raid shelter, and the 370 tonnes of food and medicine brought in since the beginning of the war.
Kappa FuturFestival has decided to support these projects during its ninth edition, which will see more than 70 international artists, protagonists of electronic music and digital arts, take turns at Parco Dora.
So many readers have asked us to do something. To save lives, to donate shelter and relief, to offer a first concrete help. And to give a sign of closeness to the people of war-torn Ukraine. So in February, during the most dramatic days of the conflict, we started a fund-raising campaign. In just a few weeks, thousands of donations arrived: this is how we are using them.
In Cernivci, Ukraine, we have built a village where every day we host 1,800 people: families who have lost everything because of the bombs, to whom we offer immediate shelter and a hot meal. The centre offers 1500 square metres covered by tensile structures with clinics, kitchens, canteen, play area for children, camp beds for sleeping. It is called “Villaggio Specchio d’Italia”, named after our sister non-profit organisation, Specchio d’Italia, and is located 30 km from the Romanian border. An indispensable project, because more and more people do not want to leave their homes. Not only that: hundreds of refugees welcomed in Italy in the first weeks are now asking to return to Ukraine, to the areas of the country where they can finally live in safety. This is why we have activated a free shuttle service to facilitate repatriation.
In the first phase of the emergency we sent dozens of shuttles, buses and trucks loaded with food and medicines from our Turin office. They reached the border with Poland and Romania and then came back to Italy, bringing families fleeing the violence. In this way we rescued over 600 people and delivered hundreds of tonnes of humanitarian aid. In the province of Cuneo and in Turin we have set up several collection centres, where citizens and businesses can continue to donate basic necessities that are delivered directly by our vans.
A telephone line was also set up in Turin for the displaced people welcomed in Piedmont. In cooperation with the volunteers of the Ukrainian Consulate, we distributed 1,000 financial aid packages of 500 euro each. For single women and their children, we have developed an assistance and integration programme called “Forza Mamme Ucraine“, which follows the model of a similar experience we have been carrying out for years in Turin. We offer sports courses, playtime and visits in and around the city.
These initiatives are carried out in synergy with the Piedmont Region, which has entrusted us with the task of coordinating fundraising and the development of solidarity projects for displaced persons.
Hundreds of deaths, an almost non-existent health system, armed gangs that hinder rescue with robberies and kidnappings, the terrifying earthquake (7.1) that devastated Haiti on the eve of August 15th requires everyone’s attention. This is why we at Specchio dei Tempi immediately opened a fundraiser together with our sister non-profit organization Specchio d’Italia: because we already experienced, eleven years ago, the drama of the previous earthquake (less violent, but with the capital Port Au Prince as its epicenter, therefore with thousands of deaths). We then intervened to support the activity of the Saint Camille Hospital in Port Au Prince, also contributing to the construction of a clinic in Jeremee, in the southernmost part of the island, which is today also the area most affected by the last earthquake.
“At the moment there are two priorities – explains Father Antonio Menegon – assistance to the wounded who often find themselves in villages completely devoid of basic medical facilities and the finding of housing alternatives to the destroyed houses. The first emergency is made more critical both by the roads that cross the tormented and mountainous area affected and by the presence of gangs of criminals who, after the recent political troubles in the country, have gained strength and are continually carrying out robberies, kidnappings and violence. Alongside the tragedy of the earthquake, here we must also deal with a profound social drama”.
Father Robert Daudier is the director of the Saint Camille Hospital: “The earthquake was very violent even in the capital, but it is in the Jeremee area that the situation is truly tragic. In fact, it is difficult to prune rescue by land because the Martissant area, along the way, has been in the hands of bandits for more than two months: they shoot passing cars, attack passers-by, kidnap those who can pay for something, and whites they are the most at risk. We need help to overcome these difficult situations, perhaps even trying to use a helicopter. The population was no longer able to cope with these terrible socio-political conditions. And now the earthquake has arrived, with hundreds and hundreds of deaths, thousands of houses destroyed, tens of thousands of families in very serious difficulty, including food”.
“Forza nonni!”(“Come on grandparents!”) is a project born after the outbreak of the pandemic. When it suddenly became clear that the older ones had become much more fragile, and – unfortunately – because they were dying. Their life had suddenly become complicated and everything had become more difficult: from collecting medicines to maintaining a minimum of human relationships with their children and grandchildren.
Deep loneliness marked by fear but also by despair. Bersezio Foundation has always supported us in this project. So, we got going and identified the most fragile “over 80s” in Turin, looking into every single situation in a prompt manner. To support our elderly, we have launched an assistance programme that provides three different forms of help for each beneficiary: the delivery of the Thirteenth Salary of Friendship (the € 500 subsidy that every Christmas, since 1976, we have offered to thousands of elderly people); the donation of two bags of shopping a month left safely on the doormat; the assistance of a domestic worker for four hours a month. We also provide a constant telephone presence with moments of sharing and even psychological support if necessary. All ways to say “Come on grandparents: you are not alone!”
With 2021 the number of elderly people assisted in Turin has risen to 75 already in January and the initiative has been extended to all piedmontese provincial capitals. The choice will be made after a verification of each individual situation, in addition to checking the Isee model. All this is made possible partly by the sum of one million euros raised for the Thirteenth friendship and partly by the donations that we expect to receive during 2021.
At Casa Santa Luisa, hope passes through a cup of coffee. It is the miracle of “Breakfasts for the poorest”: every morning at 7.15 am the sisters and volunteers of the Vincentian family offer a hundred needy people what for many of them will be the only meal of the day. Every year around 40 thousand breakfasts are served and every day Sister Cristina cultivates the same dream: “To open the door of our canteen and not find anyone waiting anymore”.
The historic refectory in the centre of Turin, a stone’s throw from Porta Nuova station, is a point of reference for the homeless of the city. In addition to being able to eat a hearty breakfast, they can have a shower and receive clean clothes too. The whole activity is financed by Specchio dei tempi and by the readers of La Stampa. Recently the foundation has also donated a van for the transport of food and for home help for the poorest.
Over the years, Specchio has also supported the refurbishment of four emergency housing units always in the same building. Then the works on the canopy for the courtyard, the new toilets and during the lockdown the signs and anti-contagion sanitary materials. The nuns and volunteers did not stop even in the face of the pandemic: they adapted to the new rules and social distancing, continued to care for the poorest. In addition to concrete help, they offered psychological support and fraternal closeness to their “Friends”. This is how the guests of Casa Santa Luisa are called and accompanied every day on a journey towards independence.
Specchio dei tempi has been present in Rwanda since 2019 with a project for the children of Nganzo, a village where we learned about the problems of schools in this country in East Africa. Here the classes have on average 65 students. Here only 65% of students complete schooling (2016 data, source Unicef). Here thousands of children get lost: the lessons are too expensive, the classrooms difficult to reach. The families are getting poorer and poorer.
Covid has made everything worse, so our contact person in Rwanda, Annamaria Zavagni Bergoglio and the head of the Catholic schools of the Rwandan CEI, Father Lambert Dusingizimana, asked us for help. For many children in the eastern province, school attendance is made increasingly irregular due to the Coronavirus pandemic, malaria and intestinal infections. It has always been limited during the rainy season, when moving around in these territories becomes almost impossible.
To allow children not to interrupt their studies, the institutes are equipped with guest rooms, where the little ones live far from their parents but close to desks and blackboards. Hospitality in these structures doubles the costs for families: if it costs 150 euros for a year of school fees, when you add the boarding school you need 300. Huge figures for those who have nothing.
Then there are the children who never leave the boarding school: the deaf-mute children, whom no one comes to pick up at the end of the term. They (and many other needy children, with or without disabilities) are looked after by the missionary nuns who manage most of the schools in the area, including Kicukiro, Nyamirambo, Rulindo, Kigali, Musanze and Nyarugenge. Specchio dei tempi will be alongside each of these pupils in the coming months. We want to help them grow up; support them with practical interventions and with our friendship. Everyone can “adopt” them, financing their studies and giving them the possibility of a better future.
Specchio dei tempi intervenes to help the people of Piedmont. The foundation of La Stampa, which has always been close to its own territory, has decided to open a subscription for the inhabitants of the municipalities affected by the floods of 2-3 October 2020. For Specchio it is about resuming a sad but consolidated tradition that in 1994 saw us collect over 25 billion lire for the flood victims along the course of the river Tanaro. Meanwhile, solidarity activity in the affected areas has found an important partner in the Reale Foundation that will support interventions for 70,000 euros. Confartigianato Cuneo, Banca Alpi Marittime and Unione Industriali Torino have also allocated contributions.
The first initiative that has been decided is that of the “Flood Tender” with which 65 small businesses in the most affected municipalities of the Cuneo area has been helped. A project intended above all for shops, artisans, bars and small restaurants. Each company has alreaduy received a non-repayable grant of 3000 euros.
Alongside the tender for small commercial activities in the Cuneo area, structural works are planned in the municipalities most affected by the emergency. A series of aid packages has already been decided and forwarded referring to the popular subscription which has so far made it possible to collect a total of over 285,000 euros through 600 individual donations.
Considerable aid has already been forwarded to the Ceva Professional Training Centre (10 thousand euros), to the municipal kindergarten in Ceva (10 thousand euros), to the multifunctional Centre of Nucetto (10 thousand euros) and to the Pollicino Park of Ormea (10 thousand euros). Currently, interventions in other municipalities are also being evaluated. These choices will be completed within a few days, to ensure promptness which is essential in these situations in order to give impetus and hope to those who have been hit.
In Sri Lanka, in the hinterland of Matara, about 12 kilometres from the coast, Specchio dei tempi built a village immediately after the 2004 tsumani. Five family homes, a medical centre, the small office building: initially it was used to give assistance to those who had suffered serious trauma and fractures in the tsunami. However, after a few years these needs ceased and, in agreement with the Sinhalese government and the Court of Matara, we decided to convert the facilities into a shelter for unfortunate girls. Thus, for over 8 years, we have been hosting girls who have experienced abuse and abandonment. It is our commitment against violence against women: a concrete project that we deal with on a daily basis, not just on the day of the “red shoes”.
Today there are about twenty girls living in the family homes that we are modernizing. Specchio dei tempi supports completely the economic weight of the initiative which, in practice, is carried out by the Buddhist monks of the Oba Mama Association, led by Reverend Ratanasare, the spiritual leader of southern Sri Lanka.
We have also been supporting the Matara Orphanage for three years. That is, an orphanage run by Buddhist monks on a court order. It currently hosts 13 children, more than half of whom are under 6 years old. All of them have different stories to tell but all dramatic. From the child who lost both parents struck by cancer, to the one who never had parents, to the one who was abandoned in the hospital by his family only because he was sick, to another who suffered violence, to others who were simply “street children” who have been given a roof. When the Japanese foundation that supported this orphanage ended its business, we were there. We didn’t feel like leaving these 13 children and teenagers alone. So we help them. If you want, you can do it too, with us.
When there is an emergency, we are always there. Therefore, for the Coronavirus we have been on the front line since the beginning of March, when the pandemic also exploded in Italy. We have raised 11 million euros, with over 16 thousand donations from 70 countries around the world. Resources that immediately turned into practical projects for the health system, schools, small businesses, the elderly and families.
In the first weeks, to protect doctors, nurses and rescuers, we purchased and distributed over one million items of PPE to 136 companies in Piedmont: masks, gloves, gowns, caps, visors. We donated 150 pieces of equipment, including two CAT machines, to about twenty hospitals in the area. Together with our partner Lavazza, we organized and financed a flight to bring 38 Cuban doctors and nurses, specialized in emergencies, to Italy: for months they worked in the Covid Hospital set up at the OGR in Turin.
To help the elderly, we delivered 5,400 free shopping packages in the first weeks of the lockdown. We have brought food to 1000 needy Turin families and in 2020 we will help a total of 3000, with economic support. With the “Specchio d’Italia” project we are replicating the distribution of these food packages in six regions and twenty cities: by October we will have given away over 17,000 shopping packages.
We have offered 250 schools practical resources to sanitize the environments; to encourage distance learning we have bought 1000 tablets with sim and Internet connection. They have been assigned to the poorest pupils. For small businesses in difficulty due to the lockdown we have allocated 1.6 million euros and 430 subsidies, promoting three tenders in Turin, Cuneo (near the Langhe) and in Sassari (in Sardinia). A fundamental contribution for artisans, traders and restaurateurs who are the soul of our cities and the symbol of made in Italy.
The elderly in nursing homes, cancer and Alzheimer patients, children and young people with disabilities. When they see the dogs of the association “Aslan – The bond with the animals” arrive, everyone suddenly smiles. And they let themselves be carried away by the enthusiasm of Noah, Patch, Tsar, Holly and Rhum, extraordinary dogs that together with the companions, veterinarians and educators, are the leaders of our pet therapy. A project coordinated by the pedagogist Antonia Tarantini, which Specchio dei tempi started in 2015 in the hospices and today includes various initiatives all financed by the foundation.
The recipe is always the same: pampering, complicity and professionals who guide dogs in their work. We are present in nursing homes in Turin, in the north of Italy, where we have brought relief to over a thousand elderly people. We are present in the Alzheimer Cafés of the city, where we involve the sick and their families who seek moments of serenity in these help centres. We are at the Istituto di Candiolo, an international reference for cancer research and treatment: here we carry out support activities for patients undergoing chemotherapy, an operation conducted with scientific rigor, in line with the precise indications of the Ministry of Health. Above all we are in 15 schools (from kindergarten to high school), to offer students with special needs an hour of games and affection every week. The meetings are individual and for each pupil Aslan defines a training course together with the teachers and the parents.
Our “Pet School” didn’t stop even during the Coronavirus Emergency, because we know that the support of the dogs for these families is essential. We therefore found new premises, to overcome the impasse of closed schools and continue to give hope.
Specchio d’Italia is a Specchio dei tempi project which takes the solidarity model of our foundation to twenty cities. Despite having deep and heartfelt Turin roots, in recent years we have in fact often appeared outside the borders of Piedmont. We did it, as a tradition, on the push of interventions linked to the emergency, starting to move in an increasingly structured, more continuous, more effective way.
With our support programme for families in difficulty, we are present in Lombardy, Valle d’Aosta, Liguria, Veneto and Friuli. In these months of the Coronavirus Emergency, thanks to the financial support of the Cassa di Risparmio di Asti Group (Banca di Asti and Biver Banca), we have donated 17,000 free shopping packages to as many needy families. Each worth about 60 euros, with 23 kilos of products: a fundamental support for those who have been overwhelmed by the pandemic. This project was born in Turin, as well as the tender for small businesses that we then replicated in Cuneo, Sassari and Venice. We have already made more than 400 grants for companies in crisis due to the pandemic.
At Christmas, for the first time, we will take our historic initiative to the poorest and loneliest elderly in Rome, Genoa, Bari, Milan and Sassari: the Thirteenth Salary of Friendship. We will donate a € 300 cheque to everyone over 70 involved and hope to raise enough funds to help thousands. Together we can do it.
We have grown and today we are able to give hope to other regions as well. We work in Genoa, for the rebirth of Fegino, a highly disadvantaged suburban area where 400 children live to whom we offer after-school activities and entertainment. We are also in Rome, in the degraded buildings of Bastogi, which are unregulated and yet host 2000 people, mostly Italians. Among them there are 300 children and teenagers, whom we are trying to keep away from petty crime through schooling. We are working in Milan too, together with Cooperativa La strada, to fight school abandonment when students are one step away from qualifying from middle school.
Since 2018, Specchio dei tempi has been closer to single mothers, single-parent families with no resources, often forced to survive in complex situations that also involve the children. In evaluating the hundreds of requests for help that we receive every day, it emerged that these families, mostly of foreign origin, are among the most exposed to new poverty. The absence of many of the children’s fathers contributes to making the conditions of often-abandoned mothers unsustainable. An element that increases the problem is the objective difficulty of women, even young people but with children, to find job opportunities.
We have therefore chosen 100 situations on which to intervene. One hundred single parents, from 12 different countries, which we have accompanied on a journey towards autonomy and reaching family well-being. We started with a simple financial contribution, to then expand the Mothers and children in difficulty project with shopping vouchers aimed at teaching the responsible use of money.
With computer and professional training courses we are encouraging job reintegration. To these activities we have added a counselling desk on problems related to parenting and a programme for the entertainment of children, to offer mothers free breaks, also to help them in their search for a job. From September 2020, the second cycle of the initiative has started and the new participants are now involved with a new tailor-made design: each mother is required to sign an educational pact and to define individual objectives to be achieved with the support of the foundation.
