Tag: specchio dei tempi

The pianist Stefano Bollani for the Christmas concert in support of the Bonus for the elderly

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Bosso, Einaudi, Allevi, Bollani. Over the years, we have entrusted the Christmas concerts of Specchio dei Tempi to them, rare occasions (and in some cases unique) to combine the performances of great artists with the charitable commitment for the ‘Tredicesime dell’Amicizia’ (Thirteenth of Friendship).

This year, two years after his last concert for Specchio, we have decided to bring back Stefano Bollani, who has become very popular after his frequent appearances on television. The Christmas Concert will be his, on the evening of Saturday, December 16, at the Auditorium Giovanni Agnelli at Lingotto.

Purchase your ticket here.

Sri Lanka, work in progress at our Children’s Village in Ibbawale

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Angelo Conti

These days, we are working in Sri Lanka at the Children’s Village in Ibbawale, where we host about twenty girls who are victims of abuse and abandonment. This program is funded by Specchio dei Tempi and carried out in partnership with Buddhist monks from the Southern Province. We are building two bathrooms for the girls, along with the corresponding sewer connections.

In the coming days, we will also work on restoring the roofs, which have to withstand frequent typhoons, and even peacocks that love to go on the roofs to display their large wheels. Unfortunately, peacocks are not light and they cause damage.

Thanks to Massimo Munafò (and his construction company) for carrying out this work at his own expense.

Hargeisa, Somaliland: the story of Adam, saved from a severe case of pneumonia

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Jessica Genova

In the rural and desert areas surrounding Hargeisa, the capital of Somaliland, dozens of refugee camps are spread out, where an ever-increasing number of families reside. One of the largest is Digaale. This camp, established in 2014, has become a permanent home for over 1,300 families, totaling more than 8,000 individuals, and their numbers continue to grow. The lack of water and food has forced hundreds of families to seek shelter in this area just outside the capital, but life— even here—remains a daily challenge. Water is scarce, sanitation conditions are deplorable, and epidemics, including a severe Dengue outbreak, spread rapidly, bringing suffering and fear.

In this fragile context, Specchio dei Tempi’s initiative fully funds MedAcross, which provides a mobile clinic service, offering medical consultations and free treatment. The medical team faces significant challenges: facilities are limited, sanitary conditions are precarious, and epidemics are a daily occurrence. Often, doctors have the difficult task of transporting critically ill patients on rough and difficult roads.

During one of my many visits to the mobile clinic in the refugee camps of Hargeisa, I meet Adam, a 14-year-old boy. It’s impossible not to notice his sunken features and emaciated body, a living testament to the hunger that devours bodies in the Horn of Africa. Adam has spent his nights curled up in bed, struggling to find a position that allows him to breathe and muster the strength to rest without fear. “The nights have been tormenting for the past week,” his mother tells us, “and he hasn’t been able to eat.” The doctor reveals to me and Adam’s mother the grim truth: the child is suffering from severe acute pneumonia and urgently needs oxygen and care to survive. Fortunately, in the Digaale health center, there is an oxygen administration machine, offering a glimmer of hope and relief to all of us. However, it’s clear that this won’t be enough. In a crisis, a proper hospital is his only hope. Shortly after, that thought becomes a reality: the electricity suddenly goes out, and the machine stops working. His oxygen saturation dangerously drops. In those suspended minutes, the entire medical staff mobilizes to support Adam. Fortunately, in a few agonizing minutes, the system is restored, allowing Adam to breathe again, and with him, we all breathe a sigh of relief.

The doctor contacts the pediatric hospital in Hargeisa, built by Specchio dei Tempi 12 years ago, in the capital, hoping to secure a bed for Adam. However, it’s not our lucky day: all the beds are occupied due to the Dengue epidemic. I realize how difficult it is now to convey to the family that they will have to wait at least one more day before being taken to the hospital. I also realize that, despite all the efforts we make daily, helplessness sometimes knocks on the door, enters, and does not leave.

The next day, however, there is finally good news: we manage to secure an available bed. The ambulance arrives at the camp, picks up the child, and takes him to the hospital, where he receives all the necessary medical treatments and remains under observation for a few days. This is the reality that the doctors funded by Specchio dei Tempi face every day, standing by the patients and seeking alternative solutions, which serve as a testament to dedication and commitment.

Specchio in Rivne, the city of orphans

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In Ukraine, there is also the city of orphans. It is called Rivne and is located in the northwest, a few kilometres from the border with the dreaded Belarus, from where many of the missiles in last week’s attack on Kiev, Lviv and other cities in the country were launched.

Here, Specchio began operating last week, starting the construction of an emergency tent in the most central square and beginning to support the many families who found themselves without their fathers, who had fallen at the front. “The Rivne division of the Ukrainian army,” explains the governor of the metropolitan city, Alex Tretiak, “was the first to oppose the Russian invasion, as early as 24 February at dawn in the Kiev oblast, and it is the one that suffered the most casualties. In the city alone, we have almost 100 war orphans and their mothers. These are people we must not only assist economically, but also by sharing their tragedy”.

 

Alex Tretiak, a former seminarian, is the rising star of Ukrainian politics. He is 36 years old and the youngest governor of a metropolitan city: he has been leading the Rivne district for two years. Elected on the lists of former President Poroshenko, who was beaten by Zelensky in 2019, he immediately erased all divisions when the conflict broke out: “Now we have to put up a united front and we are all on the same side”. Zelensky appreciated this and now often consults him. Rivne is a very delicate area because it borders Belarus from which attacks are expected at any moment: “Missiles have fallen on the city, devastating the airport and some other logistical facilities. Now we know that in Luninets, just 50 kilometres from our border, there are ramps for Iranian kamikaze drones, and we are objectively afraid”.

But the real drama could come not from Belarus but from the energy cut: “Ours is the coldest area in the country, and not only because it is in the north. The blockade of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, which is by far the most important in Ukraine but which is in Russian hands, would affect us most of all. Without power here there is a real risk of freezing to death. We fear it much more than the drones”.

There is practically no time to find alternative solutions: “In some municipalities it was already close to zero degrees last week. Many people have gone back to wood, even collecting it in the woods. Luckily, there is no shortage of trees here. But very few people have suitable stoves and there are no more on the market…”.

A bionic leg for Richi

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“My dream? Having a bionic leg in order to lead a normal life”. Riccardo Battista, known to all as Richi, with shaved hair due to chemo, a passion for cycling, will turn 21 on November 24th. “For that day I will no longer have the right leg. They’ll amputate it next week. I have a prosthesis but I can’t bend it: the pain is unbearable, and after almost four years of suffering from the tumour that has also spread to the lungs, I can’t take it anymore “.

He says it remarkably calmly: for him it will be a liberation. He is experiencing an ordeal made up of severe diagnoses, surgical interventions, more than fifty chemotherapies, a stem cell transplant, continuous journeys between Sanremo and Pisa to follow endless treatments. And a lot of pain. The news of the amputation, which no child or parent would ever want to hear, came after a lump of flesh came out over the scars. The leg can no longer be saved.

Now Richi plucks up courage for the amputation thinking about his new bionic leg. But 150 thousand euros are needed. His family (father Luigi is a bricklayer, mother Miriam did the cleaning in a shopping centre, but she gave up her job to follow her 12-year-old son and little sister Silvia, who lost many days of school because she had to follow them on trips to hospital). “I feel a burden, I don’t go out with friends anymore: I would have liked to have been a mountain bike coach for children. Now I just hope to be able to walk again and maybe get on a bike”, says Richi.

A swollen knee: it all started with what seemed like a trivial fall from the bicycle. It was April 2018: Richi was 17 and had a passion for downhill bikes. Instead, they were the first symptoms of a highly malignant osteosarcoma. A tumour that disabled the right leg after two complicated grafts (first with donor bone, then with a megaprosthesis) to try to save the leg. Cancer cells have also moved into the lungs. Bad luck made him grow up too fast and now he just wants to go back to living like a boy his age. In almost four years there have been many trips from Sanremo to Pisa, to a specialized centre for bone tumours.

With his mother Miriam always at his side, he doesn’t get discouraged and looks ahead. He has chosen his dream leg. “It’s the Genium X3 – Richi points to it on the screen of his mobile phone and his eyes light up – We hope to be able to buy it: it costs more than one hundred thousand euros, but with the “accessories”, that is the foot, the ankle joint and the part to connect to the leg, the figure increases. If we also add travel, visits and treatments, we arrive at around 150 thousand euros”. Richi lowers his eyes. “We’ll never be able to do it alone”.

Learning of the amputation was a severe blow to the Sanremo family. “We expected it a little – still mum speaking – but you are never ready for these things. The problem arose from the megaprosthesis: it should be replaced, he cannot bend it, even by a few degrees, it hurts night and day. But it cannot be replaced because he no longer has any tissue or muscle. It is important for him to be able to get back on his feet and be able to walk again. Let’s help Richi get back to living like a 20-year-old boy: he has already lost almost 4 years between hospitals, chemotherapy and invasive operations. This amputation will have to be seen by him as a sign of rebirth, although it will not be easy, as he must also keep the nodules in his left lung under control. He has always been a boy full of life: bad luck made him grow up too quickly. But is he always smiling and continues to fight”.

Haiti earthquake, what we have done in a month and what we will do

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Angelo Conti

A month ago there was the Haiti earthquake. The toll is for everyone to see: 2,500 dead, at least four times as many injured, tens of thousands homeless, 500 people still missing. Specchio dei tempi moved immediately: we know the poverty of that island, having worked there for a long time in 2010 after another catastrophic earthquake. We also know the great difficulties of that health system (almost non-existent) and of the road network, already precarious but collapsed after the tremors.

We asked our supporters to help us with three objectives: to support the Saint Camille hospital in Port Au Prince, to help the reconstruction of Jeremee (the most affected centre on the west coast), to be close to the many children of this land who in the face of disasters need all kinds of support. Although the world (and all the media) was above all watching Afghanistan in those days, many responded to our appeal.

So, up to today, together with the Specchio d’Italia foundation, we have raised 73,547 euros from 493 donors. Of this sum, 40,000 euros have already been used in the field for first aid. This phase of the intervention has been carried out in close collaboration with the Camillian fathers who have been working in that country for years, some of whom are Piedmontese.

Now we aim to support, with the remaining 33,547 euros and with what we will still be able to collect, the reconstruction of homes (a house, capable of accommodating a large family, costs between 7 and 9 thousand euros over there) and help schools, so as to bring parents and children closer to a normal life as quickly as possible.

There is still a lot to do in Haiti. If you can, please continue to give us a hand

 

The new oncohematology ward of the Regina Margherita hospital opened

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Press Release

The new pediatric Oncohematology Outpatient Clinics of the Regina Margherita Children’s’ Hospital of the City of Turin were inaugurated today (under the direction of Professor Franca Fagioli) with an area of about 1120mq, in which there are twelve outpatient clinics, two doctors’ offices, three offices, three hospital rooms and an area dedicated to hospital staff.

The intervention required major investments, amounting to about 1 million 500 thousand euros, and about 6 months of work. This project, carried out with the support of € 600,000 from the Compagnia di San Paolo Foundation and € 300,000 from the La Stampa – Specchio dei tempi Foundation, is the fifth important milestone for the Piedmont section of the ADISCO Association, chaired by Francesca Lavazza.

The Outpatient Clinics for Paediatric Oncohematology, located on the first floor of the Regina Margherita Children’s Hospital in two sections, have been the subject of an extraordinary maintenance intervention aimed at the renewal and humanization of the spaces, in order to create conditions of well-being for both patients and staff. This project continues the work of redeveloping the healthcare environments which began with the Day Hospital and then continued with the Isola di Margherita, the Emergency Department and the Paediatric Oncohematology Department, with the aim of creating a synergistic diagnostic-therapeutic path for the patient, thanks to the creation in all environments of graphics and curved walls inspired by the variety and fluidity of nature.

In fact, nature was the theme that guided the entire surgery renovation project: the curved walls, inspired by the sinuosity of the natural world, enliven the rectilinear course of the space and offer an aesthetic and functional continuity with the other departments that have already been restructured. The project also aims to improve the usability of the spaces for both staff and users, creating new paths and adapting clinics to the criteria dictated by the most recent regulations on the prevention of the spread of coronavirus. Graphics, curved walls, colours and floor games allow young patients to feel at ease, trying to alleviate the difficulties of the therapeutic path also from a psychological point of view.

The restyling responded to the need for space optimization: the clinics dedicated to oncohematologal therapies were grouped and located in the wing along Corso Unità d’Italia, while the psychological clinics and clinical studios were separated in the wing in Piazza Polonia, to obtain a more coherent organization of functions. The Clinical Research and Development Unit is also located here. This unit which needs adequate space for the management of clinical trials in safe and controlled conditions, so as to ensure compliance with the quality and structural requirements established by current laws.

For the development of the project, the contribution and advice of the medical-nursing staff were fundamental. In several meetings, the types of spaces and the correct relationship between them were allowed to be effectively defined. In this regard, differentiated accesses for different uses and three new differentiated waiting rooms to accommodate patients destined for different therapies have been added in order to avoid the risk of infectious complications and contagion between one patient and another.

“With the new Paediatric Oncohematology Outpatient Clinics we have reached the fifth intervention for the Regina Margherita Children’s Hospital, a result that makes us very proud – declares Francesca Lavazza, President of ADISCO – Piedmont Section – even more so because it was carried out during these difficult months for the health emergency situation we are going through. The concrete and ambitious path of Adisco – Piedmont Section continues, in continuity with what my family has done in the last twenty years. As an association we are looking at the next twenty years, and certainly there are many new projects that we want to implement. Thanks to the support of important partners, such as the Compagnia di San Paolo Foundation and the La Stampa – Specchio dei tempi Foundation, and all those who responded to the appeal of Adisco – Piedmont Section, we want to be able to continue to offer the most child-friendly environment possible within a structure that represents a prestigious scientific excellence of our country, even beyond national borders”.

“Since 1563, the Compagnia di San Paolo has been an agent of sustainable development of the territories for the common good, through interventions, investments and accompanying actions that put people at the centre of everything. In this case, the main objective of our intervention is to provide greater protection in a timely manner to those who are most vulnerable, especially in situations complicated by the pandemic – explains Alberto Anfossi, Secretary General of the Compagnia di San Paolo Foundation -, while guaranteeing added value for all patients even at the end of the health emergency, through the creation of more welcoming and above all safer paths. Through the mission Promote the well-being of the Planet Objective, we want to stimulate actions that allow the health system to improve efficiency and offer high-level assistance through organizational and management innovation in health, especially if associated with a technological dimension. Our mission – adds Anfossi – is also part of the collaboration with ADISCO Piedmont Section, which has seen us involved together in the previous renovations in favour of the Regina Margherita hospital. It is based on a virtuous model of collaboration between the public health company and the private one, capable of achieving a positive leverage effect: by combining the resources of two or more private entities, one intervenes in the spaces of a public body by delivering a complete, compliant work to all the required regulations in a short time. ”

“Specchio dei tempi confirms its commitment to supporting Turin’s public health, continuing to invest in improving the quality of care services and, as always, with particular attention to children. At the same time, prompt actions and initiatives continue to respond to the consequences of the pandemic in support of health care, families and the most vulnerable elderly, schools and small businesses. All this is possible thanks to the generosity of thousands of donors from Italy and abroad which made it possible to distribute over 9 million euros in Piedmont,” said Lodovico Passerin d’Entrèves – President of the La Stampa – Specchio dei tempi Foundation ONLUS.

“We thank Adisco Piedmont Section, the Compagnia di San Paolo Foundation and the Specchio dei Tempi Foundation for the realisation in record time of these Oncohematology clinics, designed and made to measure for our young patients. The restructuring of our Regina Margherita Children’s Hospital continues on a path of renewal not only in a diagnostic and therapeutic way, but above all in humanisation, which now distinguishes our hospital for children and their families. I want to underline again that this is the first major work that we have inaugurated after the death of Mrs. Maria Teresa Lavazza, who had always been committed to this very direction of renewal and humanisation of our Regina Margherita hospital” declares Giovanni La Valle, Director General AOU – City of Health and Science of Turin.

“The new department – says Franca Fagioli, Director of Paediatric Oncohematology and Full Professor of Paediatrics at the University of Turin – was designed with particular attention to the privacy and comfort of young patients and their families, renewing the environment of the outpatient clinics to meet the technical needs of medical staff but also offering children and young people a playful and peaceful space to receive the best treatments from a psychological point of view. In fact, it has been demonstrated that the possibility for children and adolescents to use spaces for play, education and leisure in general has a positive impact on the recovery process”.

The attention to spaces designed for the psychophysical well-being of patients, also in respect of the different needs of age, is finally the main theme of the new volume “Humanization, places, care”, edited by ADISCO – Piedmont Section in collaboration with various authoritative scientific voices, which traces the interventions of the Association that have taken place over the years within the hospital with close collaboration between public and private bodies of the third sector.

The renovation project of the paediatric Oncohematology clinics, as well as the four previous interventions carried out in recent years, is by Studio Miroglio + Lupica Architetti Associati and intends to give continuity to a concept of “humanised” hospital architecture that promotes the development of environments capable of responding concretely to the needs and requirements of young patients in care.

With a solid scientific basis offered by the interventions of Prof. Rossano Albatici (Professor of Technical Architecture of the Department of Civil, Environmental and Mechanical Engineering of the University of Trento), of Prof. Franca Fagioli (Director of the Department of Pathology and Child Care of the Regina Margherita Children’s Hospital in Turin) and of Studio Miroglio + Lupica Architetti Associati, – retracing the 5 major renovations carried out by ADISCO Piedmont Section inside the hospital – the importance of guaranteeing not only advanced medical therapy but also a high quality of life is told: a factor that has a positive impact on the recovery process, especially when the patients are children and adolescents.

The ribbon cutting ceremony was attended by Alberto Cirio (President of the Piedmont Region), Chiara Appendino (Mayor of the City of Turin), Luigi Genesio Icardi (Councilor for Health, Essential Levels of Assistance, Healthcare Construction of the Piedmont Region), and Stefano Geuna (Rector of the University of Turin).

 

Chapel of the Turin Shroud, restoration of the altar completed

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The wait is over. Another 20 days and then (lockdown permitting) we will be able to see the restored altar of the Turin Shroud. The eyes of Marina Feroggio, architect of the Royal Museums and director of restoration work on the Bertola altar in the Chapel of the Shroud, peep out from the mask. An intense gaze to observe what must still be done. Few details: the two frontals on the altars, the four silver lanterns on the sides of the reliquary, the cherubs on the balustrade. These are the last steps needed to return Guarino Guarini’s masterpiece in its entirety to the public after a careful restoration made possible thanks to the funds (just over 100 thousand euros) of the Specchio dei Tempi Foundation.

At the moment the inauguration date is Tuesday 30 March, in time for Easter. Feroggio also displays a special heating mat that will prevent the public from getting cold during the visit. Only the government directives of the next few weeks (yellow, orange or red zone) will establish the effective date on which you can return to the Royal Museums, and therefore to the chapel. When it reopened in September 2018, almost twenty years after the fire, the restored architecture contrasted sharply with what was immediately renamed “The silent witness”. The altar of the Shroud in the centre of the chapel, built in 1694 by Antonio Bertola, the architect who intervened on the interior works after Guarini’s death, was blackened, mutilated and damaged before the eyes of visitors. Feroggio indicates it with her hand. It was also proposed to leave it like this, as evidence of the fire. Instead, despite Covid and the lockdowns, the San Luca Consortium in recent months has worked with a team of restorers led by Tiziana Sandri.

“In the tragedy of the fire – she explains – we must be thankful that almost all the wooden and silver furnishings were in the adjacent sacristy, saved from the flames”. We started from these surviving elements, already exhibited in an exhibition in 2010, carrying out painstaking work to reconstruct what was lost and amalgamate it with new elements and new gilding. The altar balustrade is once again dominated by the eight puttos in gilded wood, each of which holds a symbol of the passion of Jesus, made by Francesco Borello and Cesare Neurone. Around the urn, which contained the original case of the Shroud (it remained there from 1694 to 1992, except on three occasions: the Siege of Turin in 1706, the First and Second World Wars) there are statues of angels, only two, the others have been lost. The fascinating silver lanterns will be hung above the four metal shelves. The nineteenth-century ones: the originals were melted down by the Savoy in 1793 to finance the battles against Napoleon. The same fate happened to the candlesticks and to the two puttos, also in silver, at the base of the steps. Feroggio also shows the tabernacle made by Carlo Genova, known as Lacchetta, in 1791, still with the hallmarks of Vittorio Amedeo III.

The great absentee is the chiselled and embossed silver plaque of the City of Turin from 1632, set in the altar until 1992. An extraordinary work: this is the ex voto that the city officials made to the Shroud to give thanks for the end of the plague epidemic of 1630. It is not yet known whether it will be exhibited in the adjacent sacristy of the Cathedral. “The intent of the restoration was to re-propose the altar with the architectural dimension of Bertola – explains the director Enrica Pagella – without exaggerating with trappings”. In the months following the 1997 fire, the readers of La Stampa generously donated just over one billion and two hundred thousand lire at the time. The Specchio dei Tempi Foundation, in collaboration with the Amici di Palazzo Reale Association, which followed the historical-artistic part, was able to finance the restoration not only of the altar, but also that of the Savoy sepulchral monuments, in addition to the cataloguing of thousands of residual fragments of the fire, the creation of an information system to identify and relocate the fragments.

Covid, Lavazza donates 200 thousand euros to help little companies

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The Lavazza group doubles the amount available for the Specchio dei Tempi tender in favour of micro-activities in Turin and its province, in difficulty due to the pandemic. The budget for the project therefore rises to 400,000 euros and so it will be possible to offer a contribution of 2,000 euros to 200 small businesses. The company had already been close to Specchio dei tempi last spring when it made an important donation towards the many activities carried out in support of dozens of hospitals, hundreds of public assistance services and thousands of families in difficulty.

Now the grip of Covid has returned to make itself felt and Specchio has returned to the field: its invitation to organizations and companies immediately found the positive response of Lavazza who underlined, by illustrating their intervention, the need to support above all those activities that are found in the most difficult neighbourhoods of the city, where the growth of poverty related to the pandemic appears more evident and more cruel. Companies from Turin and its province with revenues of up to 40,000 euros in 2019 can participate in the tender. It is necessary to fill in the form available online here, provide the required documentation as well as a brief description of the activity and difficulties encountered during the pandemic. There is time until midnight on Monday 22 March.

Distribution in one month

The ranking, at the sole discretion of a commission appointed by Specchio dei tempi, will be completed by Easter and bank transfers will begin to be sent from 6 April. The entire operation will therefore be completed within one month. With this intervention, the small businesses supported by Specchio dei Tempi (and its national brand Specchio d’Italia) will rise to over 700 in four Italian cities: Turin, Cuneo, Sassari and Venice. For an overall total of donations close to 2.5 million euros.

Invitations for tenders for companies in Turin and its province are back

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Angelo Conti & Lucia Caretti

We have to start again. It will not be easy and it will be a battle into which we will also have to put a lot of courage. We will have to do it all together, returning to believe in our projects and our dreams. Specchio dei tempi has always meant hope and has always meant Turin. So we want to help our city and our province again, exactly one year after the launch of the “Coronavirus Emergency” subscription. We want to replicate the call for tenders of last May with an initiative aimed at supporting the small and very small artisan, agricultural, tourist and commercial activities that are trying to restart after the hardest months of the pandemic.

Specchio puts € 200,000 on the plate to offer a cheque of € 2000 to 100 micro-companies, to help their recovery and the morale of those who fight this difficult battle. As always, the possibility of sharing this mission is opened up to all, increasing the resources available and thus allowing a greater amount of aid.

The second edition of the “A breath for Turin” tender will be inaugurated on March 6, with the start of applications. There is time until 21 to participate by filling out the form available on this page and uploading all the required documents. At the end of March, the Specchio commission will meet and starting from 6 April we will begin to provide subsidies. All in a month, without wasting time, just as we like it.

HOW TO SUPPORT THE “A BREATH FOR TORINO 2” TENDER.
From 6 March 2020 to today, Specchio has raised over 10 million euros to support the fight against Coronavirus, through almost 16,000 donations from 70 countries around the world. Resources that every day have been transformed into concrete and immediate help: 1.1 million protective devices for health workers; 146 pieces of medical machinery and equipment (including two CAT scanners) donated to 19 Piedmontese hospitals; a thousand tablets, several hundred sanitizing kits and online teaching platforms for schools. Tens of thousands of shopping packages for the elderly and families in difficulty, distributed first in Turin and then throughout Italy. Anyone wishing to support this project and the tender for small businesses can do so by paying online with a click here, or by using any of the methods indicated here.

 

Covid, Specchio back at providing PPE to hospitals and public assistance services

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Specchio dei tempi returns to the field against Coronavirus. In the last weeks, requests for public assistance have become pressing again for the many ambulance services that provide transport for the sick to and from hospitals, to and from medical tents, to and from intensive care. We were ready because we hadn’t excluded the possibility of a second wave of the epidemic so we had set aside about 150,000 face masks and other PPE items during the summer. We have stepped up deliveries of supplies to health professionals following continued requests for help. In recent days ambulance services have come under pressure and we have been able to respond.

The first delivery has been made to the Green Cross of Villastellone, one of the most active organizations in the area, also engaged in the city of Turin. “As in any emergency – explained the president of Specchio dei tempi, Lodovico Passerin d’Entreves – our foundation makes itself available to the community. Ours can be a small help in the face of a great tragedy, but the commitment will always be maximum ensuring the highest speed of intervention, compatibly with the resources available”.

Then the Maria Vittoria and Martini hospitals have been supplied with Pulse oximeters. Two hundred face masks have been given to the volunteers of Telefono Rosa, who work against violence towards women, often in difficult situations in hospitals. Specchio dei tempi has also provided 1000 face masks and 30 high-protection water-repellent suits to the White Cross of Ceva.

In the first wave of the epidemic, Specchio dei tempi raised almost 11 million euros, constantly supplying Piedmontese hospitals and public assistance services for months with over 1 million protective devices, hundreds of pieces of equipment, ultrasound scanners, ventilators, as well as two CAT scanners. Specchio also distributed over 18,000 food packages to as many families and elderly people in difficulty and over 1000 tablets to poor schoolchildren to facilitate distance learning. Specchio also hired a Boeing to allow the arrival, from Havana to Turin, of the group of 40 Cuban doctors and nurses who worked in the Covid emergency hospital in Turin.

The new A&E area of the Mauriziano hospital lacked a defibrillator and Specchio dei tempi immediately intervened with Piemonte Cuore (thanks to Marcello Segre) providing the department with one of our spare automatic defibrillators.

We are on the front line. Every day.

Genoa, Specchio d’Italia opens an after-school programme for the children of Fegino

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The comeback of Covid hinders school, children and families. It is becoming increasingly difficult to create useful, child-friendly teaching. There is a lack of space, technology, even human presence. The Specchio d’Italia Foundation (born by the will of the Turin-based Specchio dei Tempi Foundation) has therefore decided to intervene also in Genoa, after Turin and Rome, to carry out a project started yesterday that helps with homework and after-school activities. It also wants to be a concrete and effective presence alongside young students who are now more alone than ever.

The initiative was developed with the collaboration of Ceis Genova (Bianca Costa Bozzo Solidarity Centre Foundation) which has chosen to operate in the V Valpolcevera quarter of the Fegino area with Specchio d’Italia that finances the project. The main objective of the project is to sustain and support families in this delicate historical-social moment in concrete and everyday aspects.

The experience of the Specchio dei tempi Foundation in the areas of the metropolitan city of Turin and in the Bastogi district of Rome facilitates and supports similar and replicable work in the Genoese area. The educational commitment to children will be the starting point for a series of intergenerational activities to promote well-being, such as monitoring the needs of families and the entire territory. The premises of the oratory of the Church of Sant’Ambrogio di Fegino have been identified for the project activities. The classrooms are fully usable and allow for the appropriate interpersonal distancing in light of the measures to combat and contain the Covid-19 epidemic. The activities started with the mapping of the bodies and associations of the area that have been invited to suggest recommendations on the project. They are followed with the involvement of school managers and teachers for debate on the school programmes and the situations of greater fragility.

The collapse first of the Morandi Bridge and then the Covid-19 pandemic put Fegino in great difficulty. It is a neighbourhood that until a few years ago hosted important production activities and which now needs to be supported in order not to lose ground with respect to the rest of the city. The Specchio d’Italia project is what the area needed. The foundation’s commitment was appreciated above all by the educational world that actively participated in the project, explaining what the most urgent needs were. It was decided to focus on after-lesson activity, to provide the tools necessary to implement what has been lacking in these months with remote lessons, even to those who don’t have the tools. In short, children and young people who need not to be left alone after two difficult years will be helped. The outbreak of infections is making it even more complicated. There was no shortage of structures, but there was a lack of resources to bring them up to standard. This has been done by involving the church of Sant’Ambrogio, closing the circle of an initiative that embraces the whole neighbourhood.

Yesterday afternoon, the real school support for children between the ages of 6 and 14 also started, with individual and group guidance with homework and training support for children and teenagers from the school of first and second levels. From November, the reinforcement laboratories for school support activities will also start with the organization of thematic laboratories for the reinforcement of logical-mathematical and linguistic learning and transversal skills.

As mentioned, it is only a first step. The plan of the Specchio d’Italia Foundation is intergenerational and therefore will not only affect young people. Particular attention will be paid to the elderly. Initiatives are already being studied to create points of aggregation and to give new life to a neighbourhood that in this way feels less alone. From here Fegino can think of leaving behind these two years and more of hardship.