Institut Montana students provide hot meals for homeless in Turin
True to the motto that you are never too young to make a difference, two Institut Montana students Paolo and Manuel are involved in a project to distribute 3,000 meals to homeless people in Turin from October to December.
Paolo and Manuel founded the Swiss Relief Association in 2020 to help homeless people affected by Corona in Italy, Paolo’s home country. A year later, they have expanded Swiss Relief into a small humanitarian organization with a team of fifteen active volunteers. For their latest project, they have teamed up with the Italian Cottolengo Foundation (La Piccola Casa della Divina Provvidenza) and distribute lunch once a week to homeless and poor people in the Cottolengo area of Turin.
Swiss Relief assumes 250 meals per week will be distributed resulting in a total of 3000 meals by the end of the year. The Cottolengo is a very special place in Turin and is the work of the priest Giuseppe Benedetto Cottolengo, who was canonized by Pope Pius Xl in 1934. The small hospital built in 1828 has become a city within a city. The area, which is 16 football fields, includes a canteen and laundry service for the homeless, a hospital with over 2000 beds, a school, a workshop for the disabled and much more.
The young activists from Swiss Relief are already working hard on new projects. Their association is currently collecting English children's books for libraries in Uganda, which are operated by the English NGO Omushana Foundation. Also, the association would like to give tablets to rural schools in Romania to counteract the digital divide.
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