The importance of sport to overcome difficulties and discomfort, gain confidence and autonomy and have a more correct perception of your body.
There are 35 people aged 19 to 63 with cognitive disabilities and various pathologies, from Down syndrome to autism spectrum disorders, who take basketball, yoga and free movement and balance classes in the gymnasiums of the Kodokan sports association, in a wing of the Albergo dei Poor, in Naples.
They are the ones who run the laboratories and professional activities of “La Scintilla onlus”, an association which has worked since 1989 for the well-being of people with psychomotor problems.
The gyms open free in the morning with the altruism inspired by the Kodokan are also attended once a week by six of the sixteen psychiatric patients who live in the “Vico Carrette” residence managed by the ASL Napoli 1 Centro in the Rione Sanità.
We often forget that we have a body, with the gentle gymnastics classes started a month ago, psychiatric patients, with stories of suffering, loneliness, some even with experiences in a psychiatric hospital behind them, are starting to learn again. to small possession.
Kodokan president Giuseppe Marmo has one conviction: “All sports facilities must be open in the morning to schools, the elderly and vulnerable groups.”
In the report, interviews with MAria Grazia Procentese, coordinator of “La Scintilla” laboratory activities; Mario Lambiase, educator of “La sparkle”; Micaela Pasca, Iyengar yoga teacher; Tiziana Toscano, gentle gymnastics instructor of Kodokan and Giuseppe Marmo, president of Kodokan.
