The team at the time of departure from Italy
For Raniero Zuccaro, being a police inspector was never enough to satisfy his desire to help others. And by combining his passion for sport, he decided to combine both aspects by becoming the protagonist of businesses, alone or in groups, with charitable purposes. We interviewed him in 2016 upon returning from a coast-to-coast crossing of the Adriatic by canoe starting from his native Ancona and we found him again now on the eve “One step away from heaven”, a solidarity project that took him to Bolivia, to cross Lake Uyuni in Bolivia, the largest salt flat in the world with a surface area of over 10 thousand square km, at 3,700 meters above sea level.
But this time he is not alone, there is an entire team with him made up of Italian paralympic swimming champion Federica Stroppathe marathon runner Simone Giglietti, the photojournalist and mountain rescue operator Massimo Ilari, the nutritionist Camilla Zuccaro (Raniero’s daughter) and Sandra Stroppa, Federica’s mother.
THE’The objective of the crossing is to raise funds for the mission of the Capuchin Sisters of Mother Rubatto in Pucallpa (Peru), where they assist children and young mothers, with medical care, meals, educational programs and psychological support. The biggest challenge is that of travel 100 kilometers in three days together with Federica Stroppa, confined to a wheelchair due to illness. And it is certainly not something that can be improvised, as Raniero Zuccaro himself says. «We have been preparing for a year and eight months. Federica had long expressed the desire to participate in a solidarity venture, and this will be possible thanks to a special wheelchair, built specifically for the mission and suitable for tackling all the roughnesses of the journey on the surface of the salt lake. An initiative never done before. We had to postpone this mission twice, first due to the floods in Bolivia, then due to some health problems of mine which forced me to undergo several months of rehabilitation. Now that the doctors have given the OK I can leave even if with my back brace.”
Raniero Zuccaro, born in 1965 in Fabriano (Ancona), he has been in the police since 1984, and was nKnight of the Republic: he also has a Diploma of Merit, Medals for Civil Valor, a Commendation from the Head of State, and was elected as Ancona Citizen of the Year, all for his great commitment to social issues and the world of solidarity.
