If Mario Calabresi talks about the future, it will be not the same

A lot of people took part in the event organized by Varesenews and Cuamm, with the director of La Stampa, Mario Calabresi. Dino Azzalin, president of Cuamm, and Marco Giovannelli, director of Varesenews, presented the event. Calabresi launched his latest book “Non temete per noi, la nostra vita sarà meravigliosa.”

“It is a great pleasure for me sharing this soirée with all of you,” said Marco Giovannelli, introducing the book and his story made of dreams and commitments, born in the seventies in Africa. Calabresi began by talking about his meetings with students, and quoted the answers of 18-year-olds to questions about their dreams for the future.

He perceives a strong disenchantment about the future. The director of La Stampa showed the reflections made by the students on their dream job. He often explains to young people that becoming an architect, for example, is risky because there are too many. “Unless you are the son of Renzo Piano.” Calabresi revealed that he said it so many times that the real son of Renzo Piano wrote him telling he is unemployed and he is a journalist, and this fact raised laughter within the audience.

“But dreams and ambitions keep you alive,” he added. Episode after episode, he explained that one night a young man revealed to him that today young people are hopeless, and everyone plans to go abroad. “When I got in the car, I had a knot in my stomach,” explained the journalist. “I realized that this is an issue to deal with. We have to wonder if today’s young people can still believe they can make the difference, for themselves and for the others. I thought it would be a good topic for a book.”

Then he moved on the opening story of the book: a 27-year-old couple that get married and move to Uganda to open a hospital. Two young doctors from Milan, one love, a life to create, a hope to achieve. He had been dreaming for Africa since the beginning of university: at first, she did not agree, but one day she was the one who accepted a position in Uganda. They made the wedding list, they left and the adventure started. In a letter to their relatives affirmed: “don’t worry, our life will be amazing.” “They meant their lives would be full of challenges and this is what amazed me. They stayed for six years and came back to Italy when their first daughter had to go to primary school. This is how Cuamm was born,” explained Calabresi.

In the wedding list there were operating tables and sanitary materials. Today that hospital in Mathani, Uganda, is an important reality. In this way, this list has become the start of an ethical community that has been operating for 40 years.

Moreover, in his book he wrote about one of the stories that most impressed him: the story of a miller in Mondovì. Aldo was hired as a gardener for the municipality and his father wants to close the household mill. Aldo visits many shops and asks which kind of flours they sell. He finds out that kamut or other products have a higher price. He comes back home and tells his father they have to place a millstone and go back to the past. Well, his mother pick up the idea and secretly buys his son millstones. Also his sister resigns and starts working at the mill. Things go bad for two years, then they realise they have to sell products outside Piemonte and he creates a website. Now, every day he searches on Google and chooses the flours according to diets, trends and market demand. “What is the incredible thing? He was farsighted, while all the others thought there was nothing to do. He simply kept up with the trends: he created a shop online.”

This is an important metaphor that goes at the same pace of what Aldo’s grandfather, a man who everyday went at the market to talk with sellers and farmers in order to understand how the market was going. Today Aldo has fifteen employees who have a permanent job.

Calabresi fascinates, his way of narrating is passionate, never cynical, full. He excites and raises a round of applause. He reveals that when he was in Mondovì, and launched his book and told about this story, the real Aldo appeared. Then, Calabresi talked of “Specchio dei tempi,” the fund-raising organization of La Stampa. The journalist narrated the story of a campaign for Africa, which nobody believed in, but moved. This means that stories can stll impress people when they are well told.

Another incredible story is the one of the Syrian migrants in Greece. This is amazing because today migrants have a smartphone and children who follow the Western trends. Calabresi observed and wrote about them. He caught the tiniest details, which describe the situation better than an agreement. In few words a great reporter who can see forward. In the future.