Specchio d'Italia

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.