Yuki – Naples – Fondazione Milan

The programme includes a number of initiatives to promote the inclusion of people with disabilities in sport and society.

THE PROJECT

The Sport for All programme includes a series of initiatives aimed at encouraging the inclusion of people with disabilities in the world of sport and, more generally, in society. Few people with disabilities have the opportunity to practice any sport, and thus enjoy the psychological, physical and relational benefits that derive from it. For this reason, Sport for All is committed to making the sports offer open to all, without distinctions or barriers of any kind, through integrated sports activities that allow people with different characteristics to take the field to have fun and grow together.

The initiative comes to life in Campania’s capital city thanks to the collaboration with Yuki Onlus, an association that for years has used sport as an educational and social inclusion tool. The project aims to involve young people with social and relational difficulties and medium or mild disabilities in free basketball courses, with the aim of spreading the culture of integrated sport, offering an adequate range of sports to people with disabilities and, lastly, continuing the fight against illegality and school drop-outs.

PURPOSES

Yuki operates in the IX and X Municipalities of Naples, in peripheral areas that are not very popular or iconic, but no less degraded and sadly problematic. In particular, the activities with a strong social impact take place in the Rione Traiano and Cavalleggeri d’Aosta, areas that are the scene of crime and violence, where children and young people, with and without disabilities, lack positive reference figures and cultural and social stimuli, and are therefore more likely to abandon their studies and take refuge in illegality.

For this very reason, Yuki, with the support of Fondazione Milan, is committed to providing a concrete response to the shortcomings experienced by young people, involving them in sports and educational activities that can give them back the carefree spirit of adolescence, and offer them an opportunity for social redemption and a path to a legal life. Basketball, as a team sport, is a valuable source of bringing together distinct and distant worlds, and therefore people with different characteristics, different degrees of ability and different backgrounds. Once placed in a structured and positive environment, children have the opportunity to socialise and form lasting relationships of friendship and affection, regardless of any differences, and thus begin to lay the foundations for their future.

BENEFICIARIES

The initiative is mainly aimed at vulnerable young people, who need the accompaniment of positive reference figures to improve their relationship, integration and communication skills. However, there is a special focus on young people with a lack of independence, who have dropped out of school, and young people with medium or mild disabilities. A total of 25 young people between the ages of 6 and 30 from the neighbourhoods of the IX and X Municipalities and adjacent areas will receive a sports scholarship.

In order to encourage the practice of integrated sport, the basketball courses will also welcome high school students participating in the PCTO project of the MIUR (Percorsi per le Competenze Trasversali e l’Orientamento), in order to increase the number of beneficiaries and create a virtuous contamination between boys and girls who, in diversity, share a passion for sport.