Set sail to leave behind a difficult life and open the horizon to new possibilities. This is what is happening in these days to the group of teenagers who took part in the project “To School by the Sea“, Promoted byI Tetragonauti Association. Eighty-five days at sea, on a beautiful 22-meter sailboat called Lady Loren, capable of comfortably accommodating 12 to 14 people. No cell phones, except for an hour a day. Alone sailor’s lifelungs wide open to the iodine-laden air and a new horizon ahead, infinite like the possibilities of life that boys between 15 and 18 years old they have the right to have. “These are mixed groups of adolescents who are reported to us by the Social Services and Juvenile Justice Centers – explains the president of Tetragonauti Gabriele Gaudenzi -, young people as young as they are unfortunate, who have a difficult past behind them and who, above all, they don’t know they can still hope for a better future. For them we create sailing communities that, on average, spend 100 days at sea. We tour the Tyrrhenian Sea and stop in the ports, where there are local Associations with whom we collaborate and offer our children waiting for us training and professionalizing experiences. During the voyage, for a week to ten days we also host young disabled people, people with Down syndrome, relational intellectual disabilities, or visually impaired and blind people on board. There coexistence always brings mutual benefit”.
Gaudenzi was an educator of adolescents from the outskirts of Milan, but also a sportsman and a physical education teacher, formerly a technician of the Paralympic Committee engaged in sports for people with disabilities. “Together with Marco Spagna – he tells Luce! -, a visually impaired entrepreneur my dear friend, with whom I share a passion for the sea and for the mountains, we thought it would be nice to make a sailboat available to young disabled people, to equip us with a particularly effective educational tool and, at the at the same time, outside the box. Immediately the project also involved teenagers in difficulty, but at the beginning the crossings were separate. Instead, for ten years now, we have also been organizing integrated navigationwith truly surprising results “.
In 2003, therefore, the Association of Tetragonauts was born, which next year in March will celebrate 20 years of work and navigation. There are many projects, from short to longer sailings which, as in the case of that game on August 27, last an entire season: “We realized that the more time you spend at sea, the easier it is to start change significant in people “. The educational project “A Scuola per Mare”, co-financed by “Impresa Sociale Con i Bambini2 – as part of the” One step ahead 2018 “call – is committed, first of all, to fight educational poverty e early school leaving, and provides for the departure of two mixed groups of sailors per year, on a large and safe sailboat. “During the crossing we stop to visit cities of art, go trekking and, thanks to the collaboration with associations that welcome us in the various territories in which we arrive, we generate opportunities for environmental education, fight against the mafia and cultural activities capable of stimulating openness of the look in boys. We do not pretend to change people, but what we can do is make young people, who have not been lucky in their first 15-18 years of life, aware of the fact that they can choose an’alternative. Because often, unfortunately, they don’t even know they have it and they don’t know anything outside the neighborhood where they were born and their restricted realities “.
President Gaudenzi, what happens to the kids once they have finished browsing?
“The boys are not abandoned. We accompany them for three months with a reintegration project capable of supporting the growth paths started. We have tutors for educational support who organize two or three meetings a week, we help them re-enroll in school and continue their personal growth path. For now, we are present in six regions of Italy: Lombardy, Sardinia, Sicily, Campania, Lazio and Friuli Venezia Giulia ”.
In these days you leave with a new crossing that will see you busy until mid-November
“Exactly. It is not easy to deal with the sea in autumn, especially since the weather conditions have worsened in recent years compared to the past. But the basic principle is to offer well-being and safety to the children on board. Not adrenaline or shocking experiences. Our sailors must also be able to relax and have sufficient environmental serenity to work on themselves and question their life experiences “.
What kind of past do the teenagers you host on board have behind them?
“Many of them struggle to attend school, come from families with serious socio-economic difficulties or, if they are reported to us by the Juvenile Justice Centers, they are minors who have committed crimes. You must know that the judges have a measure available called “Testing”, useful for offering young people the opportunity to demonstrate that they can make a different choice of their life, moving away from the world of crime and deviance. For this reason, in the “Put to the Test” projects, the judges are increasingly proposing the 100-day navigation “.
Any episode with a happy ending?
“In the meantime, let’s start with the analysis of some data: among the boys who have a criminal record and have been included in the probation program with us, 85% have completed their path, of these 90% with successful. Someone with a history of dealing, theft, etc. but there was a guy who, after cooking with us for 100 days, started cooking and currently works in several kitchens in Corsica, he got married to a Senegalese girl and has a peaceful existence. Another of our young ex-sailors has decided to take a nautical license and today he is a skipper in pleasure boats. Also, this year for the first time a girl who had already participated in our spring module, decided to come back on board with us to support the new sailors and play the role of big sister. An added value for the participants, who will carry on a tiring path, but at the same time formative and promising “.
What will be the itinerary of the autumn route you have just started?
“The stages will be different, we’ll see if we can respect them all based on the weather conditions. On 17 September, for example, we will be in Civitavecchia, guests of the Amici della Darsena Romana which, like us and the partners of “A Scuola per Mare”, belongs to the Italian Sailing Union. With them we will attend the concert of the wheelchair thieves, a group made up of disabled people. Then we will sail towards Asinara, where we will offer our children environmental education courses and a diving course: in fact, our commitment is also to make them acquire qualifications and experiences in some way professionalizing. During the course they will also attend first aid courses, HACCP, etc. Often these young people are turned away from school because they are confused, inattentive, hyperactive. We make them rediscover the pleasure of learning through something different, something practical. Above all, we try to make them understand that knowledge can change the future, otherwise they will always be destined to remain the last of the last. The next stops will be Palermo and the Egadi Islands, where they will meet realities involved in fighting the mafia and / or in environmental education campaigns and the promotion of rights in the world of work. Finally, going up, we will stop in Procida – capital of culture this year – and in Ischia, where in mid-November we will finish our navigation but not our journey alongside the boys who, we hope, will only be at the beginning “.