> SOLIDARITY AND INTEVENTION AGAINST SOCIAL EXCLUSION
> OUR STORY & ENNIO BALDAN
> PARTECIPANTS
> THE PRESIDENT AND THE DIRECTIVE BOARD
> WORKERS

SOLIDARITY AND INTERVENTION AGAINST SOCIAL EXCLUSION

“IL PORTICO” is a volunteering association that has been providing its services in the territories of Riviera del Brenta since 1985. Not only does it try to offer immediate and cooperative help to needing people, but it also aims to remove the causes of discomfort and social exclusion.

The association was founded by an autonomous group of young people committed to social projects. Throughout the years the association had organised its activities, until it reached its present configuration, which is structured as follows:

• entertainment of free time for marginalized and differently-able people
• welcoming and temporary accomodation for needing people
• intervention and projects aimed to create awareness and involvement for the growth of a culture based upon integration and social justice
• social activities in the territories of riviera del brenta and its neighbourhoods

“IL PORTICO” plays a special social role, an important connection between family and job. Actually, it aims to entertain free time which, to people facing difficulties, often represents the most oppressive and joyless moment of the day.

The association intervenes when and where other services cannot operate, offering occasions of meeting people, in addition to simple but meaningful opportunities of making new experiences.

Differently-able and/or lonely people, who spend their time at the association, present weaknesses of various kind, above all linked to mental or psychological disease, which often depend on different situations of social exclusion.

For this reason, the moment of welcoming these people is always characterised by special importance and delicacy.

Whoever comes to “Il Portico” is encouraged to feel at ease from his or her first approach to the group: everybody keeps up a constant effort in order to maintain the meeting place as an “open space”, a free landing place where beginning new human relationships so to leave behind any discomfort.
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ENNIO BALDAN & OUR STORY

The association was born by the activity by the group of young people interested in the social matters. The association organised various activities during the years of its existence until the present form has been created.

The life and death of Ennio Baldan is so much connected with the events which happens in our association, that the story of Ennio has became also our story. In the same way, also our future will be signed by his everlasting presence and the spirit of solidarity, which he has left in his house still used by the association. When we met Ennio, in the beginning of 70′s, the most fascinated thing about his grave and uncommon desiese was the irreversibility of the doctors’ conclusions.

Multiple sclerosis leads to progressive paralysis but before the death there is almost always mental lucidity. This awareness that remains in a body that gradually paralyses it from the limbs to the lungs, has always seemed like a terrible condemnation, almost a unacceptable torture, an evil that life brings to some unfortunates in the age when they build the first long-term plans and when they want to fully enjoy all the experiences of human existence.

Even today there is still the mystery, why life has made us the privileged ones and Ennio ill. But the extensive experience has not been found. Sure, the pain doesn’t have a response uniformly acceptable by all men, because there are different ideologies and different spirituality.

On the other hand, also the one who doesn’t seek explanations, who merely confirms that life itself is a random series of events will have to face this unsolved problem in the face of human suffering. The man who suffers is a continuous demand for the man who is well. But also the healthy man knows that sooner or later the pain and death will affect him too.

However we wanted to escape these ideas, and while in between friends we were looking for a definitive answer, we started to give to Ennio the safe ideas, the immediate ideas. And  so we decided to stay together with him, because the solitude is an evil that doubles the weight of physical pain while the human sharing reduces it in proportion to the number of true friends you have around you.

Ennio made many friends, as he was one also for the dear Paolo Zuin, and they formed the most intense joy which was lasting until the end.
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PARTECIPANTS

The number of people regularly participating to the meetings may vary between 30 and 40 unities, depending on the day and the appreciation of the proposed activities.
The enrolled members are about 330, among which there are 200 volunteers (whose participation may be more or less frequent) committed to the association. The enlarged group of friends, relatives, co-workers and amateurs is composed by about 700 people, who usually gather together for the annual celebration that is held every year on the second sunday of September.
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THE PRESIDENT AND THE DIRECTIVE BOARD

The members of the association nominate the Directive Board, the President, the Board of Accountancy and the Board of Arbitrators.
The President is elected by the Members Assembly, by the majority of present members. The Directive Board rules the association and it’s composed by 10 members who are voted in the secret election by assembly of members and the president.

The Directive Board once it’s elected nominates the vice-President (who must be a member of the Board of Directors), the Secretary (who may be an unelected member) and the Committees. All membership charges, as the benefits by members are provided freely.
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WORKERS

To enhance and provide continuity to the activities the association employed 10 operators, professionally trained, three full-time and seven part-time.
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