MASS. Ten years of challenges, from the Covid emergency to the management of landings, passing from “common” activities such as health or social assistance to people in difficulty. These are the events under the presidency of the Massa-Carrara Red Cross committee Giorgio Ricciwho has been at the territorial summit of the association for about ten years and is now expiring, with the renewal of the positions next Sunday.
The numbers
To date, the Committee has around 250 volunteers distributed across 15 municipalities in the province, with around fifteen vehicles including six ambulances. Red Cross, the largest voluntary association in the world, has always guaranteed support to people from a social, health and civil protection point of view. For example, they drive ambulances, they go to natural disaster scenarios, their doctors provide services all over the world. In Massa-Carrara, Ricci’s decade was characterized by challenges, emergencies, and even crises, starting with that of volunteering in general. Partly due to the reforms of the sector, partly due to the crisis in membership and donations. Which in a province like ours are felt even more. Issues that according to Ricci will have to be addressed by whoever takes the presidency after him.
History
An activity, his in the Red Cross, born in 1983 and never interrupted: “Since then I have been a volunteer, and I will remain so even after.” In drawing up a balance sheet, more as a volunteer than as a mandate, Ricci starts from at least the 1990s, recalling for example the introduction of neonatal transport in the territory, i.e. a system that allows the transfer of newborns at risk with ambulances that represent for everything a mobile intensive care unit. «For a long time we have been a point of reference for the neighboring territories of Liguria and Tuscany, but also at an international level. We have saved many lives thanks to the collaboration with Meyer of Florence. And then the Cuore project in collaboration with Opa, now the Monasterio foundation, which allowed the operation of over 100 children from Albania and then expanded to other territories.”
Management of landings
Currently there is the management of the landings of migrants at the port of Marina di Carrara, «where the Red Cross has provided and provides a first aid service to hundreds of people, often mothers with children, or even more often unaccompanied young people. Which are many”, he points out. «This activity is very exciting for the volunteers themselves, and should not be questioned. It must be done because first of all people’s lives must be safeguarded.” In between then the many civil protection services, from the floods in the province of Massa-Carrara to the recent ones in Emilia-Romagna or Tuscany.
The years of Covid-19
And then the years of the Covid-19 pandemic. «Moments that were at times surreal, because on the one hand they allowed the volunteers to move and move and thus exit where no one else could; but on the other hand we had responsibilities that went beyond ourselves. Being on the front line of the emergency allowed us to rescue many people, going right into their homes and seeing dramatic moments.” But the further challenge of Covid, he adds, «is what it has left us, bringing a further crisis to the public health system. We are witnessing an increase in the needs of people, especially those on low income or with fragility, who are unable to cope with treatment. See the long waiting lists, even for serious illnesses. The alternative is to go private, but a few hundred euros are enough and people give up on treatment. The population is ageing, life expectancy is high. As an association we have paid particular attention to this growing emergency, and the institutions must do the same. It is no coincidence that when we meet with mayors we always tell them that volunteering is the best of the population they represent, and it is true. What would happen if the network of voluntary associations disappeared next week?
Volunteering
Yet, he admits, «if on the one hand the voluntary system has an increasingly crucial role, on the other it is experiencing a crisis on multiple levels. We are increasingly self-financing our services and this is thanks to the resourcefulness of individuals, but it is not enough. From an economic point of view, the territory is among the most fragile at a regional level, and therefore with some additional difficulties in implementing services”. If this is valid from an economic point of view, the same is true for the volunteers themselves, who are decreasing. «At the time of Covid there were easier insertion paths, with greater requests for membership. But now the crisis is here, it is strong and it is becoming alarming. The world of volunteering, especially among young people, is less and less seen as a point of reference. I believe that whoever comes after me will have the task, the honor and also the duty to contribute to writing a different model of volunteering.”
