“The Sports Village on Tour” comes to Rom. A sports festival with free admission, aimed at all those who love physical activity and exercise. The event was organized by Sport without Borders, an organization that has been promoting sport as a means of social inclusion for over 10 years, targeting hundreds of minors living in socioeconomically disadvantaged situations, thanks to the support of Conad.
The event
Among the activities available to the public free of charge were football, volleyball, fencing, basketball, judo, chess, gymnastics and boxing. After the stop in Turin, the tour of the village reached the capital, then continued to Pescara (Piazza Salotto, 27 September), Rimini (Parco Fellini, 29 September), Piacenza (Piazza Cavalli, 11 October), Trento (Piazza delle Donne Lavoratrici, 13 October) and Catania (Piazza dell’Università, 27 October). On the morning of Tuesday 10 September, the event was presented at the Foro Italico in a press conference attended by the General Director of Sport and Health SpA Diego Nepi Molineris, the President of Conad Mauro Lusetti, the President of Sport without Borders Alessandro Tappa and the Councillor for Major Events, Sport, Tourism and Fashion Alessandro Onorato. Olympic champions Alessia Filippi and Massimiliano Rosolino were present as special guests at the Roman stop. The event continued until the 16th and invited hundreds of young people to try out the various sports.
Nepi’s speech
«I am delighted to be able to share this space with Conad and the other speakers. I bring greetings from my President Mark Half-Roma and the marketing team who worked hard on this project that was launched a few months ago. Sports and health is a growing company with the mission of developing sport from the grassroots, putting the citizen at the heart of every idea and project. We want to offer the best possible service for an inclusive activity and prevent dropout, the premature abandonment of sport. At 12, a boy stops playing sport because he does not have facilities or cannot afford it. We want a vision of nutritional education to be integrated in schools, to start from the structural foundations for a sporting activity. We are also experiencing the phenomenon of childhood depression, unthinkable ten years ago. If our territory does not offer opportunities for physical and sporting activities, we must form alliances with important companies such as Conad. This will allow us to enter the territory and work in a context of circular economy and create value. It is necessary to recreate 2.0 oratories, invest in gyms and sports facilities. We finished the Paris Olympics with many medals, but equally important are the social medals.»
Lusetti’s speech
«Supporting the Sports Village on tour throughout Italy opens up a new field of commitment to support the communities in which we operate: sport as a form of education and support for the growth of young people. The world of Conad is already active in this field with the Conad ETS Foundation and the daily actions of members and cooperatives, and with this initiative it extends its national commitment to support the sports education of boys and girls. Sport, just like school, are priority areas of intervention on which we at Conad want to focus our commitment, with the aim of offering equal opportunities to all young people and supporting the future of the new generations. Conad is a market leader, but also a cooperative that brings with it a set of values and an approach that wants to give value back to the communities that host our centers. We have 2500 members spread across the country, from Valle d’Aosta to Sicily. This is how we try to identify paths and activate processes. It is a side activity in which we mainly work on inclusion, analyzing the difficulties that affect young age groups. We try to promote people’s well-being, supporting the development of a rich life from a sporting and physical point of view. We also offer a competition with over 200 prizes that are sports equipment that societies can access. For every 15 euros of purchase, a voucher is received that is redeemed by the buyer’s chosen sports society, for a total value of 140 million euros in vouchers.»
The speech of Tappa
«The Sport Village on Tour is a festival that is born as a moment of meeting around sport, a day dedicated to sporting activity as a game, especially dedicated to children, young people and families, but open to all. It is a day of promotion of sport and its values, on which Sport without Borders has built its mission. The aim of the association that has organized this tour is to enable less fortunate children to practice sport, improve their integration, prevent educational poverty and avoid the risk of social exclusion, especially in the summer months. We are in Rom as a group of friends and as a group of Modern Pentathlon and we are happy to have achieved these goals. We have felt very supported by the City of Rome since the first minute of our existence and now we also feel a little less alone compared to other moments of our growth. We work in networks because you can’t get anywhere on your own. We work with oratories, family homes, the socio-health sector and sports clubs. We manage to give hundreds of children in Rome, in all the outskirts of the city, the opportunity to do sport. This year we have taken over 2000 children on summer holidays that they would otherwise not be able to afford. I would like to thank the psychologists, educators and athletes. They work to integrate children for families who do not have the same opportunities. 27% of minors do not do sport, the main reason being economic poverty. We do our best to help them and we will continue like this.”
Onorato’s speech
«I am delighted that Sport without Borders has organised a solidarity village, accessible free of charge, where you can practice many different sports outdoors. We have supported this project from the beginning, as well as many other Sport without Borders initiatives, because it corresponds to our vision of sport in Rome: accessible to all, without barriers that separate girls and boys from different socio-economic backgrounds, and an ideal means of helping people to integrate. Everyone should be guaranteed the right to sport, the best means of spreading healthy lifestyle habits, but unfortunately many families today are unable to offer their children a sporting activity. We have once again allocated funds, as we did last year, for sports vouchers to benefit those who need them most. And we also want to give our support to valuable initiatives such as this one, carried out together with Conad, to help many children in a concrete way. Thanks to Conad: it is important to invest in sport. A network model makes it possible to overcome even the delays of institutions. I thank Sport and Health for what we do and for working together. There has always been a somewhat provincial approach. We need both big events and popular sport, one leads to the other. Without the big champions it is complicated, everyone falls in love with a great champion.”
Filippi’s speech
“The medal is the pinnacle, but behind it is a journey of commitment and sacrifice. I was born and raised in Rome, in a suburb. My journey has taught me to be a good person and to have a correct lifestyle. Talking and telling people what to eat is easy, setting an example is more important. Yesterday I made a 40-minute training video and my children joined me to do sports. Now there are also parks where you can train and meet. As for the work in the swimming pool, what makes me most proud is letting children with intellectual disabilities and non-disabled children swim in the same lane. It is a beautiful message of inclusion. I hope this collaboration continues because many families have been left behind. Let’s take each other’s hands and walk together.”
Rosolino’s speech
«The reality is that the picture changes every day. On the one hand, you have to have the dream, to imagine a happy ending as something you chase. However, the daily goal must be focused. Working in the pool has taught me that children give you much more than you give them. Those who have difficulties are the ones who are least missed. My advice to them is never to be absent. The most important thing is to be there. The young people who practice sport should not think about winning. A boy in the second/third middle school did not come to the last competition. He wanted to be a bit rebellious, I always tell the young people that you always finish the season. I made him understand that the better you get, the easier it will be and the more fun it will be. Sport allows the child to overcome the crisis. Those who do their best have no worries.»
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