Sport Illumina, equipped spaces and playgrounds in 85 Italian municipalities

Italy that practises sport as a right of citizenship is taking shape, metre after metre, playground after playground, in the suburbs and urban parks with 'Sport Illumina', the programme promoted by the Minister for Sport and Youth Andrea Abodi, with funding of EUR 31.8 million, and developed by Sport and Health. The foundation stone of this new social infrastructure was laid yesterday in Cologno Monzese, in the park in via Neruda, with the inauguration of the first of the 85 playgrounds being built in the municipalities of 17 regions (26 in the North, 23 in the Centre, 36 in the South, whose maintenance will be guaranteed by Sport e Salute for six years), in the presence of the institutions involved and Team Illumina Ambassadors Filippo Magnini and Giacomo Galanda.

"Sport Illumina," Abodi explained, "has as its objective the urban and social upgrading of places where one can practice motor activity free of charge, because we have a duty to intervene all the more where social hardship and criminal phenomena emerge or have the upper hand, as we did in Caivano, not only with the reconstructed Pino Daniele sports centre, but also with the playground we dedicated to Fortuna and Antonio, children thrown from two balconies thirteen years ago, applying the principle of sport as an indispensable social immune defence. With this spirit and with this awareness, the Meloni government is investing financial resources and implementing widespread projects, as never before in the history of the Republic, starting with the 1,543 equipped spaces in southern municipalities with under 10,000 inhabitants, to which we can now add the 85 projects of Sport Illumina, such as this one in Cologno Monzese'.

Where indeed an old space has become a multifunctional area with a 3x3 basketball court, a calisthenics gymnastics area and a climbing wall: an open, accessible, illuminated and animated micro-installation with sports tutors, designed to be experienced 24 hours a day. The mayor of Cologno Monzese, Stefano Zanelli, emphasised how the playground represents a reference point for young people and an opportunity for stable collaboration between the municipality, associations and citizens.

'This is Sport and Health's concrete response,' explained President Marco Mezzaroma, 'to an ever-increasing demand for spaces and places where physical and sporting activities can be carried out freely, free of charge and accessible. We are thus breaking down some of the barriers to access to sport. A concrete commitment that does not end at the ribbon-cutting ceremony, but is consolidated in the daily management of these spaces'.

Diego Nepi Molineris, CEO of Sport and Health added: 'Illumina was born from a simple but disruptive idea: darkness must be transformed into opportunity and silence into the pulse of a community. Our mission is to generate social value. We light up the territories with the most powerful weapon we have: the beauty of practised sport, free and accessible to all'.