09/04/201090 Minutes for Sick Children
Italian TV stars will be starring in a different kind of show this weekend. They'll be hitting the soccer pitch for a first-ever charity match against the country's top hearing-impaired players.
Saturday April 10th at 15:30 at Ostia's Stella Polaris stadium a 30-minute drive from Rome, the likes of Marco Risi, Enzo De Caro, Francesco Salvi, Paolo Conticini and Matteo Garrone will be giving it their all.
"It'll be a unique match, with referees armed with flags rather than whistles," explains Francesco Montingelli, the actor behind the event.
"Ninety minutes in aid of a project to help sick children at home 24 hours a day, that's linked to Ostia's Ospedale Grassi."
Proceeds will go to the 'Piccoli Guerrieri della Home in Hospital Onlus' charity - dedicated to children affected by highly disabling pathologies.
"This initiative was spawned by a campaign to raise awareness about the need to break down communication barriers that we have been running for over one year," Francesco tells me, "'The Theatre that Goes Beyond the Silence is what we called the campaign."
The show 'From Medea' is currently on tour around Italy and is over-titled for the hearing-impaired.
The organizers say Saturday's match has two main goals:
- to further integrate young and old persons with hearing problems using sport as an integration tool
- to reach a minimum donation of 5,000 euro in order to help the Ospedale Grassi's children.
"We hope to use the donations to buy machinery like respirators and oxygen tanks, as well as beds, chairs and desk," says Francesco.
The young actor tells me one often talks of breaking down architectural barriers (for the blind and the disabled) but one hears very little about breaking down communication barriers.
"We want people to realize that one can use over-titles in theaters and sub-title in cinemas" he adds.
"But the big goal is for the producers, directors and distributors in Italy's world of showbiz to take up the cause and get our country into line with the standards that already have existed for years in the USA and in much of the rest of Europe."
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