2023-07-04 10:47:12
An early summer dream experienced by children and young people with spinal muscular atrophy (Sma) in Turin over the past three days. Hosted in the Juventus sports centre, they were protagonists of the first ‘Ada Camp 2023’, the summer camp created to promote well-being through the practice of sport. Three days of great emotions – reads a note – which saw them busy playing, at the Wins international school, World international school of Turin, a mini-football tournament organized by Oltre Sport, an amateur sports association that intends to sport as an expression of well-being, motivation, tenacity, discipline, education and exaltation of the values of people with disabilities.
“The Ada Camp was an opportunity to involve children and teenagers with SMA in the sporting activity of powerchair football and in the dynamics on which the game is based – explains Sante Varnavà, president of Oltre Sport – We don’t keep the children on the field to offer them a diversion, but goals that become a real reason for living and that allow them to look at life with different eyes.After more than 7 hours of play, in these children’s eyes there was satisfaction, happiness and then the question ‘ have we already finished?”, and I think this clarifies better than anything else how important sport is for them. We strongly believe in sporting growth and we think it is necessary to continue to spend ourselves and commit ourselves to proposing initiatives like this, to make this seed become a tree “. Anita Pallara, president of FamiglieSma, says: “Sport is a fundamental element in life, a building block for everyone’s psychophysical well-being. Being able to let so many children and parents experience the emotions and joys that powerchair football offers was a first great result In order not to remain mere words, messages of inclusion must be transformed into real actions, like this one. It’s days like the ones I’ve lived that make me proud to represent FamiglieSma and our values”.
Not just football. Thanks to the hospitality of Juventus – continues the note – the little sportsmen and women were the protagonists of three days in black and white passing from the exclusive atmospheres of the J|Hotel to the exciting halls of the Juventus Museum, thus immersing themselves in the stories and symbols that have made history of the club: from the trophy room to the historic bench in Corso Re Umberto; from the Golden Balls lifted by the Juventus champions, to the roundup of all the logos symbolizing the history of the Lady, up to the center of the Allianz Stadium lawn with the docufilm, multimedia content ‘Fino alla fine’.
With Ada Camp 2023, the power and beauty of sport become part of the ‘The Adventures of SMAgliante Ada’ project, an educational comic campaign promoted by Sma Families and Nemo Clinical Centers, with the contribution of Roche Italia – recalls the note – which since 2020 has been accompanying children and young people in learning about and experiencing what it means to build an inclusive society. In fact, the dream lived by children and young people these days will become a video reportage that will be presented together with Ada’s comic trilogy in elementary and middle schools, starting from the next school year. An itinerant tour in which sport, together with comics, becomes an educational tool to continue promoting the value of the person, in his uniqueness.
And scientific research too, thanks to the team of the Nemo Clinical Centers and Nemo Lab, will continue to be part of the project, in understanding the role and impact of sports practice and experience in the life and growth of children and young people with Sma and in their families. “As a great fan, I am strongly convinced of the power that language and sporting practice can have in educating about life – declares Alberto Fontana, president of the Nemo Clinical Centers – Sport is healthy competition, team spirit, respect for others, but also and above all challenge oneself, in the awareness of limits and resources. For this reason it will be important to understand the meanings that our children and their parents will give to sporting practice, in a historical moment in which research is changing the history of SMA”.
Educational laboratories and scientific research, therefore, to continue the journey of ‘La SMAgliante Ada’, capable of speaking to children about important topics such as disability, social inclusion and scientific knowledge in proactive terms and through new languages. In her comic trilogy Ada, a little dog with Sma, with her fiery red pram lives everyday life made up of school, friends, family, sport and much more. And like her peers, Ada has dreams, projects, fears, curiosities, expectations that fill her days and which every time become an adventure to be experienced and told, with that lightness and irony that only young people can have in transferring even the complexity of life.
“They have been three days of great emotions for all of us – comments Amelia Parente, Rare Disease, Governament Affairs & Transormation Head of Roche Italia – I therefore thank Juventus with all my heart for the welcome. Roche is truly proud to be alongside FamiglieSma and the Nemo clinical centers in this long adventure with ‘La SMAgliante Ada’ who took the field to put sport at the center as a universal language to bring to schools to open a dialogue aimed at overcoming the concept of normality, because what we hope for the future is to live in a society where words like diversity and inclusion become so obvious as to be useless. A special thanks goes to FamiglieSma, Nemo clinical centres, Oltre Sport and above all to ‘La SMAgliante Ada’ for representing the language of the change we want to see in the world.”
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