Those of the bolt

There is a newspaper that really puts the experience and ideas of young people at the centre. It's called Il Bullone, it was born in Milan and has as its mind and heart a group of boys and girls scattered throughout Italy, who meet periodically for editorial meetings. Between the pages - on paper and online - you can read stories linked above all to current events and fragility. To fully understand the meaning of the project, however, we need to take a step back and get to know the reality that gave it life, the Bullone Foundation.

Sofia Segre Reinach, general director, explains its mission. «Our Foundation works with young people who have experienced significant illness, such as oncological pathologies, eating disorders or rare diseases. We reach them with a team of educators in hospitals and involve them in various practical activities. With them we learned that such challenging illnesses risk becoming all-encompassing and destroying the identity of boys and girls." For this reason, the objective of the Foundation is precisely «to accompany young people to become aware of what they are going through, but also to help them experience the pathology as a part of life and not as the whole».

More than 200 young people aged between 14 and 30 participate in the Foundation's proposals. There is the newspaper, but also the production of podcasts and collaboration with various companies with a view to offering spaces in which to acquire professional skills.

«For example, some of the young people edit a newsletter for the employees of a large company on issues related to inclusion» explains Reinach again. Then there is a traveling exhibition, Scars, the result of a journey undertaken with the boys, girls and volunteers of the Foundation. «The first exhibition was in 2018 – says the general director – we asked ourselves what our scar is, we all have one, in the body or in the soul, right? And then we represented it with a statue." Bullone has more than ten years of activity behind it and was born from a very personal experience. It was founded in 2012 by Bill Niada, a Milanese entrepreneur who lost his daughter to an oncological disease. From that moment he has oriented all his activity towards non-profit.

Chiara Vitali

NP Novembre2023