The “Galilei Ferrari” of Turin at a school of resilience: when sport helps to overcome disability

Bionic People is a non-profit association based in Turin that aims to talk about disability in a new way, ensuring that young people affected and marked by a tragic event can start again and find the strength to return to living fully. . The sportin this regard, can be an important driving force and an antidote to the anguish and discouragement that risk fully affecting a young person who has to deal with his disability every day.

Present in sixteen Italian regions with its testimonials, Bionic People focuses entirely on dialogue with the youngest and, therefore, with schools to talk – as stated on the association’s website – of equality and the need to work together to build a more open society and ready for everyone’s needs.

A few weeks ago, for example, the students of a first class of scientific high school of the ISS “Galilei Ferrari” in Turin participated in a project managed by Bionic People and led, in particular, by its founder Alessandro Ossola, finalist athlete in the hundred meters at Tokyo Paralympics of 2020. Ossola, victim of a road accident in 2015 in which he lost his left leg, had the courage not to give up and fight, until he became a champion but, above all, he chose to commit himself to encouraging the younger ones, even the able-bodied, to never give up, whatever the extent of the drama you are experiencing.

The Galilei Ferrari students were thus able to compete with other kids in sitting volleyball and padel competitions and then listen to testimonies from people who had the strength to move forward thanks to these sports. In the end Alessandro Ossola, after recounting his experience, advised all the kids to change their outlook towards disabled people and to never give up on the difficulties of life.

“From today we are better people!” Thus, on the Galilei Ferrari website, a student who participated in the project concluded her story. From 2019 to today, over thirty thousand Italian students have come into contact with Bionic People and have been able to learn, from the voice of those who have gone through severe turbulence in their lives, that in each of us there are internal strengths and resources that we often don’t know we have own and that c