HOP-ON CULTURE FOR A SUNRAY

Project location: Italy, Rome
Project start date: April 2019 - Project end date: October 2019
Project number: 2019-004
Beneficiary: Raggio di Sole

The Raggio di Sole Onlus was created in June 1963 by ten founding members to provide their children with an opportunity for life, independence and integration, the same as any other youngster. Raggio di Sole works to provide its patients who have acute mental retardation as well as their families with primary assistance (meals, lodging for residents..), medical care and rehabilitation.
Today Raggio di Sole is a Rehabilitation Center that offers hospitality to 51 patients (21 residents and 30 semi-residents, "Special Friends"), offering them a home, a protected environment, the warmth of a family, rehabilitation activities and places, a staff of professionals that includes physicians, nurses, therapists and health services assistants to guarantee them a good level of lifestyle.
Each day Special Friends are involved in integrated activities such as: physiotherapy, speech therapy, psychological and psychiatric therapy, sports, painting, crafts, theater, music, gardening, etc..
In this context, the issue that the project intends to address is to increase the Special Friends' social integration through an artistic/cultural program that envisages planned trips, weekly visits to historic, religious and entertainment sites, such as museums, archeological areas, parks, movies and theaters in the city of Rome. This project received a grant from the Nando and Elsa Peretti Foundation.

At a time when the city of Rome offers an increasing opportunity to benefit from the city's artistic and cultural heritage, also through entertaining and stimulating channels (such as multi-media exhibitions, etc.), Raggio di Sole intends to keep its Special Friends updated and informed.
"HOP-ON CULTURE FOR A SUNRAY" is a social integration project for the Center's physically challenged patients, through planned trips that offer the opportunity to organize guided tours once a week for seven patients on a rotation basis. The project has been conceived by Leontina Pallavicino, ALFA FCM and Raggio di Sole with the objective to encourage individual and relational growth of the Special Friends, in order to promote and improve their integration and sharing. In fact, many families do not have the income to cover these opportunities for our patients.
In this context, the initiative of the weekly guided tours envisages that our Special Friends will visit (for approximately three and a half hours each time) some of the most fascinating locations in the city of Rome (historical and religious sites, entertainment venues, museums, archeological sites, zoos, parks, cinema and theaters).
The objective is to encourage individual, relational and cultural growth, to promote their right to integration and sharing in a stimulating context. The project envisages that the experiences gained during the guided visits and the material collected will be subsequently studied individually by the patients and in groups, with the medical staff and therapists.
The project intends to implement the socio-rehabilitation path of our Special Friends: (i) guaranteeing their right to benefit from Rome's rich artistic and cultural heritage; (ii) helping them to relate to contexts that are new and stimulating to them; (iii) encouraging their physical, psychological, cognitive and emotional well-being through socialization, group experiences and movement; (iv) stimulating memories and the subsequent re-elaboration also through the use of audio-visual means and comparisons between them and the Center's medical staff and therapists.