Biagio who didn’t want caresses and is now the testimonial

Up to four years Biagio Luigi he did not communicate and refused physical contact, due to brain damage reported from birth he has psychomotor retardation and vision and hearing problems. This boy originally from Gela, in Sicily, lent his face to the campaign for the 5×1000 of the League of the Golden Thread, which has been around since 1964, which has helped him on his way. A personalized educational-rehabilitation plan was developed for him which allowed him to start responding to external stimuli and be less and less isolated.

TO Osimo, in the Marches, followed the first years of elementary school in the new National Centre, while his parents came and went from Sicily to the Marches to visit him. He has been back home for a few months, where he continues the path traced in Osimo, also with the support of the Territorial Service of his region. The parents, the teacher and the support teacher are periodically visited by operators from the Lega del Filo d’Oro of the Territorial Service of Termini Imerese.

He is now in fourth grade. At school they set up a station similar to the one he used at the National Center, and even at home he has a room equal to that of the Lega del Filo d’Oro, where he can carry out the activities he learned in Osimo to stimulate his residual senses. Territoriality is key in managing people with illnesses and disabilities. “The activities of the Lega del Filo d’Oro are developed within five Residential Centers with annexed Territorial Services: in Osimo, where the national headquarters of the Foundation is located, in Lesmo, Modena, Molfetta and Termini Imerese”, explains Rossano Bartoli , president of the Lega del Filo d’oro Foundation, «We also have five other Territorial Offices (in Novara, Padua, Pisa, Rome and Naples) which are particularly valuable because the institution’s territorial team, made up of social workers and educators and assisted by consultants for psychological support, orientation and mobility and the use of assistive technologies, interfaces with the network of local institutions present in the area to support deafblind people and their families in putting into practice the individual rehabilitation programs developed by educators and specialists”.

This is one way to ensure that the rehabilitation program is effective and shared and that all the actors involved walk together in the same direction for the well-being and autonomy of the person with deafblindness. «The Offices and Territorial Services are also a point of reference for families who risk feeling inadequate and alone in the daily management of their children. Finally, they coordinate groups of volunteers and plan socio-educational activities dedicated to deafblind people to broaden their world of reference and get out of isolation”.

Being ever closer to people who cannot see or hear and their families means providing concrete answers to their needs. «For this reason, one of the main objectives of the Foundation is precisely that of strengthen the presence at the local level both in terms of quantity, ie increasing the number of the current ten offices, and from a qualitative point of view, ie enhancing the services offered. We are currently working in Abruzzo for the recovery of the house where the founder Sabina Santilli lived in San Benedetto dei Marsi (AQ) and where a Study Center and Territorial Headquarters will be created, and in Lazio for the construction of a Residential and Social Healthcare Center daytime; we also plan to open other offices in regions where we are not present”.

What do people followed by the Lega del Filo d’Oro need above all? «Depending on age and disabilities, at the Lega del Filo d’Oro we develop personalized educational-rehabilitative pathways, oriented towards the recovery of residual skills and the development of potential, focusing on the specific needs of the person. We work so that people with deafblindness and multiple psychosensory impairments can achieve the greatest possible autonomy, through the development of perceptive, cognitive and psychomotor skills”.

«Central, in this sense, is the work on the development of the potential linked to the sphere of communication, to allow the deafblind person to be able to communicate his needs and establish significant relationships in the relational sphere. For these reasons, the Lega del Filo d’Oro has always supported the scientific research in the rehabilitation field and encourages the development of assistive technologies and innovative solutions capable of improving the well-being of those who cannot see or hear. These tools represent a fundamental resource capable of removing obstacles and facilitating the complex relationship of people with multiple disabilities with the surrounding environment”.

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Throughout the process of taking care of the families, families play a fundamental role, not only because they are an integral part of the entire educational-rehabilitative process of their relative, but also because at the Lega del Filo d’Oro they receive reception, support, support, information and training to manage a very complex disability such as deafblindness. Since the diagnostic evaluation, the family members are part of the management of the life project and receive all the information necessary to know the progress made and be able to follow the path once they return home.

«In this last aspect, the presence on the territory is a very important element: it is in fact thanks to thatgold thread” which opens the world to those who cannot see or hear and which winds its way throughout Italy through the Branches and Territorial Services, if the Lega del Filo d’Oro can reach deafblind and multi-psychosensory disabled people and their families where they live , providing increasingly appropriate answers to their needs and allowing them to continue their therapies and be followed by operators and professionals close to home”.

Over the years the instrument of 5×1000 (for the Lega del Filo d’Oro the code to be included in the tax return is 80003150424) has proved to be fundamental. «It is also thanks to the proceeds of this fundamental support that in 2022 we were able to realize a great dream, namely to finish the construction of the second lot of the National Center of Osimo, a highly specialized pole thanks to which we will be able to strengthen all our activities, guarantee personalized educational-rehabilitative services to a greater number of users and respond to the needs of deafblind adults who can no longer count on the support of families. And today we need it even more to make it operational and full of life, maintaining the high quality standard that has always distinguished our way of working».

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