Instead of the mixer that animated the dancing evenings there is now one of the eight spaced beds.
A small-large initiative to support the most vulnerable people took over the debates and cultural initiatives.
It happens in Rome, in an Arci club in the Pigneto district:
the "Sparwasser"
has converted itself to welcoming the homeless.
Books and tables have given way to blankets and pillows, drinks consumed at the counter to the distribution of a hot meal.
And all this, in record time, triggered a real
solidarity contest in the neighborhood.
The project was carried out together with Nonna Roma, the "mutual aid counter" which, through the collection and donation of food and basic necessities, concretely helps many poor families in the city.
"In Rome 10 people died because they did not have shelter for the night. They died of cold, alone. It seems paradoxical and unbearable that a place like Sparwasser, which has always been the heart of a thousand activities, remains closed and unused while out there are those who, due to the cold and indifference, are dying. We have decided to make available what we have: our place, our arms, our time ", the manifesto of the
" Here is a place "project .
In a week the donations have grown more and more.
At Pigneto, as explained by the Arci club, about 200 people came forward to prepare hot meals for dinner and food baskets, the bars made breakfasts available, the pizzerias made their pizzas available.
Diana Armento, the president of Sparwasser, tells ANSA how this initiative was born: "As a club we have been closed since October 28 but even before we worked at very low intensity. When we read that the tenth person had died in Rome from the cold we thought to activate a shelter. With the help of Nonna Roma we launched the event and made an appeal to the neighborhood to give us a hand. There was immediately a huge response: a company contacted us and donated all the beds and the sheets. Every night one of us sleeps with seven guests, five of which are 'fixed' for now. For them we have studied a balanced menu, the environment is sanitized daily and everyone swabs. It's not easy ".
At the moment, two other places in Pigneto, which in the city is one of the nightlife areas, have offered their spaces to expand the initiative and Sparwasser volunteers are considering whether to take them over.
"It is not our job - underlines Armento - and we would not want to do this in the coming months, we would like to continue to do our political, social and recreational activities. It is a way of denouncing how the institutions are unable to plan the alternation of seasons calling it 'cold emergency'. We who bring lymph to cultural production, we who have been completely forgotten in this period, have made ourselves available to intervene for a social emergency - he concludes -. I hope that at least then we will be recognized ".