Fondazione Laureus

Laureus is a global movement that celebrates the power of sport to bring people together as a force for good.

The first Patron of Laureus was Nelson Mandela. At the inaugural Laureus World Sports Awards in 2000, President Mandela said: “Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire. It has the power to unite people in a way that little else does. It speaks to youth in a language they understand. Sport can create hope where once there was only despair. It is more powerful than governments in breaking down racial barriers.”

FONDAZIONE LAUREUS ITALIA

The Fondazione Laureus Italia, based in Milan and founded in 2005, benefits from an influential local Board of Trustees, including among others Adriano Galliani, the Vice-President of AC Milan. Academy members Giacomo Agostini and Alberto Tomba actively support the work of the Foundation, through visiting its projects and raising its profile.

The staff of Fondazione Laureus Italia Onlus realizes projects that use sport as an educational tool to promote the social inclusion and well being of children at risk of marginalization and deviance.

PROGETTO POLISPORTIVA

Since 2006, Fondazione Laureus Italia has been trying to connect community based sport associations with schools located in "bad" neighbourhood and social services. Fondazione Laureus Italia selects sport associations that share the Laureus vision and are available to take part in a project at high social impact. Then, Fondazione identifies children that would benefit from participating in a sport activity but they are not yet involved because they lack the support of the family to keep up with the training or cannot afford the enrolment fees. The children are selected with the help of schools or social services as they have a superior knowledge of the families that could benefit the most from participating in the program. Finally, Fondazione Laureus Italia helps children enrolling in the sport activities of the associations included in the network by paying the fees for them, supports the coaches and managers of the sport associations with professional training, and raise awareness among schools and social services on the pedagogical potential of sport.

Progetto Polisportiva encourages the collaboration between the different professional figures normally dealing with children at risk using sport activities as the occasion to sit around the table and share the different point of view on a child's behavior.

Since 2006, Progetto Polisportiva has been implemented in Milan and outskirts, Naples, Catania, Bari, and Rome.

MIDNIGHT BASKETBALL

Midnight Basketball started in 2009. The project is based in a public park of a "bad" neighbourhood of Milan - Quarto Oggiaro. The project aims to keep young people off the streets and out of trouble using basketball during late-night hours.

IMPACT EVALUATION

I was appointed for the definition and supervision of the research activities commissioned by the Board of Fondazione Laureus Sport for Good. With Bocconi under the supervision of Prof. Francesco Perrini, we developed a model to calculate the Social Return on Investment for the project "Midnight Basketball". With Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Dept. of Psychology) under the supervision of Prof. Cristina Castelli and Prof. Caterina Gozzoli, we realized an impact evaluation of the project Polisportiva and an organisational analysis focusing on performance appraisal.

PUBLICATION

Progetto Polisportiva is the subject of the book “Sport e resilienza. Il modello della Polisportiva Laureus” (2013) written by Professor Cristina Castelli, Università Cattolica di Milano. I wrote the chapter Il modello Polisportiva which lays out the case study.