Mini-Basket Grand Prix Promotes Community and Prevention in Local Schools
At least 350 children will participate in the mini-basket grand prix, an event organized by Basket Aquile Lonato, the sports club that manages the city’s sports arena in the Garda area until autumn 2000 and runs motor activity courses in various towns along the lower lake.
The project is developed in close collaboration with Fondazione Exodus of Don Antonio Mazzi, which has a recovery community in the Sedena district. The initiative, launched in recent days, will conclude in May with a large celebration aimed at strengthening the close relationship at the core of this undertaking—namely, sports and prevention.
Age Groups and Activities
All participating children are divided into three age groups, covering the final year of nursery school and the elementary school cycle. Specifically, the pouters group includes the youngest, aged 5-6; the squirrels are children who have already turned 7-8; while the eagles are boys and girls aged 9-10.
“The meetings,” explains Marco Rovida, an active leader and coach of Basket Aquile, “will take place in all nine municipalities hosting the Exodus-Tremenda centers. These are Pozzolengo, Cavriana, Solferino, Castiglione delle Stiviere, Sirmione, Sciano, Padenghe, Lonato, and Calcinato.”
Goals and Messages
“The mini-basket grand prix,” he adds, “will be itinerant and will aim to promote community bonding, fun, and socialization around sporting moments. Sport is not an end in itself but a helpful means to meet other children and teenagers, exchange ideas, and foster new friendships.”
The slogan printed on everyone’s T-shirts reflects the recovery community for drug addicts Exodus‘s long-standing challenge against drugs: “Tremenda… voglia di vivere” (“Tremenda… desire to live”).
Since its founding in 1984, Don Antonio Mazzi’s group has undertaken this path, focusing on prevention in close contact with the planet-youth; hence, sport is naturally integrated. The main objectives are information, socialization, and fostering individual value.
Last Christmas, during the Festival of Life, all basketball teams received agendas from “Tremenda” as gifts—a reminder that life, “which must be lived anyway and not suicided through drugs,” should be cherished.
It is worth noting that, besides Sedena in Lonato, Exodus also operates facilities in Cavriana (Casa di Beniamino) and Monzambano, in the province of Mantua.