Juve Heart

Juventus and Charity

Juventus Football Club have always proven their commitment towards humanitarian and social causes. The commitments and projects that the Club actively supports are an integral part of its policy and culture: the very same values and ideals that Juventus stand for in the sport world are felt and spread through charity also.
The Club's involvement and commitment in helping to solve social problems certainly derive from the Juventus' management distinct sensitivity towards the subject, but then develop through the network of fans, supporters and sympathizers all across the globe. Juventus can indeed convert the true sporting passion that this group of people have in common into a desire to do good for others, making them aware of such problems. Only by cooperating together and making helpful people, who are also great team players, join together, is it possible to successfully carry out the grandest plans.

Initiatives

Juventus' social commitment in recent years has touched on different areas and has earned them the “Scudetto della Solidarietà” for three consecutive years, an award given out by the non-profit magazine VITA [Life] to the club who have distinguished themselves more for their charity programmes, their generosity and their long-term projects.
The main initiatives developed in recent years have been:
1) “Fatti e Progetti per i Giovani” [Facts and Projects for the Young], a plan for improving the life of many youths, and making them study with profit, carried out through two specific acts: the first is creating a Centre for non-EU minors within the Don Bosco Missions structure able to organize a series of activities connected to teaching, voluntary work, and preventing kids from leaving school. With the same spirit 300,000 Euros were recently given away to Don Bosco Missions for building a Centre in Thailand for kids who've become orphans due to the Asian Tsunami; the other, in cooperation with the Turin University School of Economics, is to establish a course to study management, applied in the area of sport, uniting teachers and professionals who work in the sector and encouraging research on the management of sport organizations.
2) An “Asylum”, named in memory of Edoardo Agnelli, in conjunction with Vicenza Voluntary Groups, set up for the purpose of giving refuge to mothers in trouble.
3) In the year 2000 the association “A dream for the Gaslini” was established, with the purpose of restoring the San Gerolamo Abbey, located inside the Gaslini Hospital in Genova. The estimated restoring costs were € 4,500,000, of which € 2,000,000 donated by the Gaslini family and the rest raised thanks to the effort of Juventus players. The restoration has transformed the Abbey into a place of study and fun activities for children staying at the hospital and their families.
Currently Juventus' efforts are concentrating mainly on the “Growing together at the Sant’Anna” Project. The collaboration with the Piedmontese Foundation for Cancer Research also continues, through the funding of a private transport service linking the city of Turin with the Institute for the research and cure of cancer in Candiolo.

The “Growing Together at The Sant’Anna” project

“Growing together at the Sant'Anna” is the enterprise, coordinated by the Committee of the same name, now called Onlus Foundation, born from the collaboration between Juventus Football Club and the Regina Margherita - Sant’Anna Hospitals in Turin.
The aim of this initiative is to raise funds for the restoration project to be carried out in the Newborn Ward of the Sant'Anna Hospital. The committee includes notable figures of the medicine world. From this year the project's testimonial is Pavel Nedved.

The "Growing together at the Sant’Anna” project's aim is to restore the Turin Sant'Anna Hospital's Newborn Ward, bringing it up to international quality standards.
Structural and organizational solutions that can encourage a more humane and familiar environment for providing care and promoting psychological and physical wellbeing, of both users, i.e. children and families, and all people who work there every day, are sought.

The Newborn Ward at The Sant'Anna Hospital in Turin

Due to the nature of the Newborn ward's guests, a structure was created to support the babies' necessities in the best possible way under a medical point of view, but also under the point of view of psycho-emotional and family relationships.
The ward follows the principles of “care” and “family-centred care”: this means considering the newborn at 360°, ensuring the young patients can have some sort of normal life even inside a structure that is not their home and that can often have a sombre atmosphere.

Practical ways to reach this aim include facilitating parents' access to the ward, both in terms of time (“free access”), and of environment, making the process more human and personal. Parents must be involved in every aspect of the children’s stay at the hospital, and the family's love and support, together with constant physical contact (the so-called kangaroo mothering technique), become essential ingredients in the process of treating the newborn.
The main aim of the project is reaching a correct relationship between functionality and comfort and the newborn ward is one of the vital steps in the process.
The main requisites of the environment, to allow the Hospital to resemble a family setting as much as possible, are highly personalized furnishings, to make the environment welcoming and user-friendly, and the presence of cutting edge equipment for the treatment of the children.