The National Team of Friendship

The Italian National Friendship Team was born in Turin a few years ago, with the aim of raising funds for children affected by rare diseases. But that's not all, because behind this already noble motivation, dozens and dozens of hearts are hidden that give countless smiles to these little souls, involuntary protagonists of a category little considered by modern society.
Those born with a rare disease, defined as such because it affects only a few cases in the world, life is uphill: often pharmaceutical companies do not produce the necessary medicines for them because it is not convenient, other times our health service does not recognize any type of assistance as these diseases do not fall within the numerically affected cases, and in many other cases the families find themselves abandoned to their fate, as if the illness of the relative in question were a real fault.

Walter is a boy that we could define as lucky; he has a wife, a newborn son in perfect health, a job that allows him a comfortable life, and everything that apparently could allow him to live with few problems, with the exception of those that life sooner or later reserves for everyone. But Walter did not choose the comfort of a passive everyday life and when he met Camilla for the first time in a Lombard pediatric hospital, he took action immediately.
Camilla had a very rare disease that made her unique in the world because her body became more and more stiff as the months went by; limb after limb, organ after organ, so as to transform it into a sort of statue. No one ever figured out what she was up to and no one ever tried to find out.

When Walter crossed Camilla's eyes, he understood that behind that excruciating pain he was feeling, behind every muscle, nerve, joint that hardened for no reason, there was something that no one, not even that cursed disease without a name, could cement, or his feeling. Thus, equipped with patience, hope, trust, he involved other friends, and then others again, and created a reality that could intervene precisely on the emotions of kids like Camilla, bringing them a few moments of light-heartedness, joy, happiness.

The Italian National Friendship Team therefore tried to respond to these needs, first with sporting events where young people could feel part of a community that did not exclude them, then by creating teams of people who, disguised as superheroes , met free of charge all those children who suffer in hospitals, in unsuitable homes, and in all those places where pain is the only true constant. And their determination, combined with a not indifferent love, led these volunteers to cross the borders of Piedmont, landing in every region where even a single child screamed for help.

Today, after years and years of smiles distributed everywhere, the association is trying to achieve another ambitious result, that of creating a place that allows children affected by rare diseases to spend time with sports dedicated to them and which ward off that bad feeling of abandonment to which they are accustomed. Thus, in a degraded area of Turin, they have taken over an old sports center and, with the patience of an ant that fights with enemies bigger than it, it is trying to undermine the crazy bureaucracy that also characterizes the cases that should travel on privileged tracks . Unfortunately, the road taken still seems very long, but Walter and his friends will not give up and, equipped with patience, will also be able to realize this umpteenth dream.

I learned first-hand the effectiveness of projects dictated by the heart and, if they sometimes seem to get bogged down in issues that have little to do with feelings, they have one characteristic: they cannot fail.


Max Laudadio
NP March 2023