INTER CAMPUS POLAND, BETWEEN MONITORING AND INSTITUTIONAL MEETINGS

Krakow – Autumn has arrived in Poland. The weather is cold and rainy, the sky is grey. This won’t stop the work of our delegation though, intense and emotional as it always is. We met the Director of the Italian Cultural Institute in Krakow, Ugo Rufino, with whom we scheduled a future meeting in spring to present the Inter Campus project to the local community. The day continued with a visit to one of the three orphanages we cooperate with. It is located in Kazimierz, the Jewish district of the city, where a group of children are training with Kasia in the local gym. After receiving their Inter shirts, the kids set aside their initial shyness and followed Lorenzo and Andrea, who showed them some drills. The same happened at Sieborowice, a group home some 40 minutes away from town, where Artur is in charge of training.

We had lunch with the Director of the institute and the educators who live here with the children. Some of them are orphans; some others have been drawn away from their original families, whose living standards wouldn’t help them receive a proper education. Familiarity and affection were ever present during our stay.

Olek is our local coordinator and the one who showed us around in Poland. He is also Jadwiga vice-president, a club from the Saint Edwige neighbourhood, where we were meant to deliver the membership cards for the new season. It was very emotional to see the children go onto the stage of the school theatre! We had dinner together and discussed the potential of future events. The first idea is to involve a Special School in Krakow in the project. We then had the chance to visit the Pawlikowice orphanage, which hosts male children only, who spontaneously started a game with our staff members. We rounded off our week in Poland with an important institutional meeting with the Italian Ambassador in Warsaw Alessandro De Pedys, who was very interested in our activities and ready to support them in the future.

03.11.2017