BUCHAREST - Inter Campus is back in Bucharest for a refresher course with local staff. The course is run by coaches Roberto Picardi and Dario Tripol, who are also in charge of monitoring the project which has been run since 2012 in partnership with the Parada Foundation to help street children, orphans and abandoned youngsters.
It's always tricky to effectively convey the emotions experienced with the children of Bucharest: they're happy on the pitch and show the same desire to play as kids all over the world, but it's hard to portray their living conditions.
The group that takes part in Inter Campus is made up of children from the St. Marcellinus group home, managed by Spanish Gesuit monks, who try to create a family environment on a daily basis. They look after every aspect of the children's upbringing, from schooling to sport with Inter Campus. Then there are the kids at the Pinocchio 1 orphanage, a state facility which provides temporary shelter for street children. Inter Campus is the only chance they have to play, learn and have fun.
Finally, there are the Parada youngsters, who live on the street. They are provided support on a daily basis by the foundation through social aid, access to healthcare and educational help. They enjoy the entertaining activities the foundation offers, such as teaching circus skills and football with Inter Campus.
The kids look forward to their training sessions, which are held twice a week. Among them are those who, now it's summer, live in parks or squats. In the colder months however they are forced to go down into the manholes of Bucharest, to seek refuge in the canals where hot water tubes run. It's a vile-smelling, unhealthy and promiscuous environment, full of violent adults, where drugs and alcohol are rife. Underground, often invisible lives, Parada's mission is to help them, bringing light and hope with the aid of Inter Campus.
Here's what happens over the course of a normal day's training: Catalin, a coach and educator from the St. Marcellinus group home goes to pick up his group of children and takes them to the pitch. In the meantime, the other coach - also called Catalin - arrives and sets up the equipment for the drills. Youngster Marius, the assistant coach, brings the kids from the Pinocchio centre and they all arrive together having taken three different forms of public transport. Project coordinator Sergio and volunteer Nicola meet the street children at the Parada day centre where, before they go to train, they can eat a meal, given that it's never sure that they've eaten the previous day. Then everyone hops on board the minibus to the pitch and, if anyone hasn't turned up, Sergio and Nicola go and look for them around the city, at their "home", be it under a manhole, in a squat, a tent in a park or in a gorge on the banks of the Dambovita river.
Once they get to the pitch, the much-anticipated fun can begin. Training sessions are also a chance for the foundation to monitor and a further tool to consistently involve the children in a healthy and educational activity that keeps them out of danger and can take them down a different path, for example back to school.
Once training is over it's time to make the same journey back. And it doesn't matter if for a 90 minute session you actually need six hours, every effort is repaid thinking about how much all of this contributes to providing hope and a better future for these children. It's worth it to see how happy and proud they are to play and wear the Nerazzurri colours.
