Elena Nencini
Listening to the less fortunate, offering them a hand in times of difficulty, a project born in 2016 within the Caritas of Ravenna, as Luca Michelacci, one of the volunteers, says. Among the initiatives of the Ronda della Carità, a fundraising dinner was held to support the association’s initiatives: the dinner was organized by the Cacciatori di idea e Pronto Intervento Charità Don Antonio Obovali, in collaboration with the CSi territorial committee of Ravenna- Lugo and the La Pieve cooperative also saw the involvement of the kids from Spazio 104 who served the tables.
Michelacci what is the Round of Charity?
«It is an activity that arrived in Ravenna 10 years ago, the patrols were born in Florence in 1993 by Paolo Coccheri and over the years they have spread to many other Italian cities.
The person who started the Ronda in Ravenna was a friend of mine who had known Coccheri personally. A man of great humanity who also came to Ravenna to create this business and involved us. I have been following the Ronda for 4 years.”
How many people are you?
«We are about ten people, from 18 to 80 years old, I am 28 years old and many of us are young: we go once a week to bring support to the city’s homeless. We collaborate with Caritas which gives us a room to prepare sports bags and tea, and the parish of San Vittore has also given us a room for storage when we need to store shirts, mattresses or objects for the homeless.”
What exactly do you do with the Ronda?
«We bring food supplies to people in difficulty who don’t have a home, some hot tea, we chat, we listen to them, to give them a sense of brotherhood, of closeness. When possible we try to bring blankets, clothes if they need them or give them a hand to direct them to those who can help them in a more structured way such as Caritas and social workers, or we give them a hand to obtain documents. We are also supported by the Don Antonio Obovali association, which hosts one or two homeless people at its headquarters. They also try to involve them in some activities to make them feel useful, even small gestures of volunteering, civil protection or surveillance activities to make them feel useful for society.”
Looking at the situation of the homeless in the city, what has changed?
«The homeless have not decreased but increased, fortunately Caritas has integrated new services, the free showers in Santa Teresa, the availability of the Emporium in via Narsete which they are able to exploit for their primary needs. There is a good network in the area, also because the dormitories have filled up and there are people who struggle to stay in overcrowded places, some are difficult to manage because they have a history of alcoholism and drug addiction. There is an underlying great loneliness and certainly, like Ronda, that is what we do best: listen. We have known some of them for a long time, we chat for half an hour, they tell us that they don’t talk to anyone, one day we brought a birthday cake to a woman who was moved because no one had yet wished her a happy birthday. They are small but important gestures.”
How was dinner?
«There was a good participation, around 40 people were present, a good example. The collaboration with Spazio 104 was also nice, we met on this occasion and we think about other things together. We would like to repeat this experience later.”
Do you have other activities planned for the future?
«We would like to have a dinner with the homeless and the volunteers, we usually do it at Christmas, for them the tombola is a great moment of celebration. We offer him a different evening. We hope to be able to organize ourselves since we are all volunteers.”
