We talk a lot about the kids – often trivializing the complexity of their experiences -, and to the kids. But it happens a few times to leave the word to them. Marco David Benadì, happy father of Beatrice, 19, and Alberto, 16, CEO of the advertising agency Dolci Advertising and contract professor at the Faculty of Economics of Turin, wanted to break the mold.
Today (October 6) his book comes out «One meter from the future. Hopes and fears of a suspended youth “ which inaugurates the new series of Edizioni Gruppo Abele «I Trampolini», dedicated to female readers and adolescents. «He chooses to let the young people speak. Here they are the ones who turn to readers, with their freshness, sometimes naivety, but also great passion, the ability to be direct and authentic “, as he writes Don Luigi Ciotti, who signed the preface.
The Covid pandemic it has tested everyone, but perhaps it is teenagers who have paid the highest and most long-term price. The closed school, the interruption of direct relationships, health restrictions they have affected their emotional, psychological and relational growth. How did young people experience this period, and how have their perspectives on the world and the future changed?
“I am an advertiser,” Benadi explains. «The idea of this book was “Fault” of my children, who in lockdown, in one of the classic evenings in which one was locked in the house, isolated, they asked me: “How will it end?”. I didn’t know what to answer, and tried to find an answer out there. I “handed over the pen” to 16 young people, whom I met a little in presence and a little in a video call ». Benadì, careful observer of the digital world, has traveled all over Italy, from north to south, to meet young people aged 15 to 19, of various social contexts, and answer this question, then faithfully reported their words, undertaking to pass them on to readers.
The meetings with the children were organized thanks to the intervention of Free. Names and Numbers Associations against the Mafias. And they brought out a rich and varied inner world. “Boys and girls care about the environment and the future of the world, but they are aware of the importance of friendship, academic and work goals, and the value of feeling and accepting oneself for who one is regardless of genders and affective and sexual orientations», Explains the author, to whom, for example, Chiara, 17, told that her favorite book is the« Universal Declaration of Human Rights ».
«A generation squeezed between a planet that is collapsing and the hope that everything will change. Young people who, despite everything that happens, are unexpectedly optimistic, e able to see the beauty in small things», Adds the author, who confesses that he was very moved by the words, free and all different, of the boys. Like those of Francesca, who tells of when she saw a pink moon with her sister: «A bullshit, but in my opinion every day we should find something beautiful for which we can say: ‘How beautiful!’». Or of Beatrice, 17 years old from Sanremo, who explains: “My dreams are really big, so I happen to think: “When can this be done?”».
“The young, lively, unpredictable and fertile, can help us to broaden those narrow horizons that we have built with our abundances and our shortcomings”, explains Benadì. “Let’s listen to them, let us enter their visions, let us remember that they are our tomorrow».
This book is part of a circular project: part of the proceeds from the sale of this volume will go to finance the “street education” projects of the Abele Group, to combat early school leaving and promote inclusion and active citizenship in social contexts of marginalization and difficulty.
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