Sport without barriers to welcome diversity

Sports as a factor of social inclusion, sharing and socialization. An example of this was the event that took place on Sunday, September 3^rd, in Fossano, a locality of the Province of Cuneo in northern Italy. There, twenty-four football teams, eleven bowling teams, and two baseball teams met for a “barrier-free” competition. Among the four hundred athletes, there were disabled persons and people seeking asylum.

This was the sixth edition of an initiative launched by the sports association Asd Sport Senza Barriere Apg23 - a non-profit organization of the Associazione Comunità Papa Giovanni XXIII: a competition dedicated to Don Oreste Benzi, their founding priest and great friend, who died ten years ago.

The organizers explain that the aim is “to tell about the beauty of sharing life with everyone... by proposing to the region a path for growing in the welcome given to all forms of diversity, thus taking up the baton of the witness left ten years ago by Don Benzi.”