Leukemia, the cancer that most affects children and young people, is now increasingly cured thanks to treatment. But when a teenager gets sick, everything changes radically, right at the moment of discoveries, friendships, of school, of dreams; and the psyche is also affected more than in adult patients.
For this reason, the Maria Letizia Verga Foundation, founded in 1979 by Giovanni Verga after the death of his daughter Letizia at just 4 years old, with the aim of providing help and support to families and, consequently, also to young patients, since 2014 has created spaces and projects at the San Gerardo hospital in Monza – the place of treatment par excellence for pediatric blood cancers – dedicated to hospitality and support during the treatment process. Because not only the child suffers from the disease, but the whole family also suffers together.
«The Foundation was born from an idea by Giovanni Verga in 1978», recalls Raffaella Cucinotta, head of fund raising at the Verga Foundation. «His daughter Maria Letizia had died of leukemia and the family collected 12 million lire, which they gave to Professor Giuseppe Masera, who understood how the alliance with families could give birth to something beautiful and lasting. So he asked Giovanni Verga to help him create what was then an association of parents who could support the doctors’ treatment path.”
THEThe point of reference for the Giovani project is Marco Spinelli, medical director specializing in pediatric oncohematology at the San Gerardo hospital in Monza and responsible for the psycho-social area for three years. The main pathologies it deals with are leukemia – which is the most frequent oncological disease in under 18s – lymphomas and other blood pathologies. Once treatment has begun, the children are followed even after they reach adulthood. “TOWe have experienced over the years that only a holistic treatment path, which addresses the whole person, leads to true healing and avoids relapses. This therapeutic alliance with the Verga Foundation provides for the global care of the patient and his family.”
After Covid there was a stop in the activities, which then restarted with the idea of collectively writing a song that collected the phrases and reflections of the kids: a hymn to life and the possibility of starting again after illness. Warner Music and its artists then set it to music and 14 singers, including Geolier, Rose Villain and Elodie, agreed to put their faces and voices to it. This is how the Verga boys’ song was born, Proud of us.
An editorial team was then started in which young people could experiment with other forms of interaction with the world of music, through interviews with singers to be published online
. «A dozen young people were directly involved in the project, but the Youth project involves around fifty young people patients” continues Doctor Spinelli. «Among them there are those who have just finished treatment, those who are still undergoing treatment, those who have returned to their city of origin and remain in contact with the hospital for checks. They had already met Dargen D’Amico and Mara Sattei and, on the occasion of the last edition of the Sanremo Festival, it was decided to organize two outdoor expeditions to the Ligurian town to bring some artists together with the kids. One of them was Stash, the other Michele Bravi, who did not participate in the album but spontaneously offered to support the activities of the Giovani project”.
Right in Sanremo, where Christian family followed the Festival, there was a meeting with a group of these guys, for a chat over an aperitif non-alcoholic. Among them Margherita, 22 years old; Andrew, 23; Beatrice, 17; Federica, 21; Charlotte, 15.
Beatrice: «When I learned the diagnosis it was as if the world had collapsed on me. However, the words of the doctors reassured me: “You are in the right place”, they told me, and this project gave me a lot of hope because it allowed me to meet other kids who are like me.”
Andrew: «I didn’t immediately understand the gravity of the situation and I thought the treatment process was easier. Faced with the side effects, I fell, but then I recovered, also thanks to my teammates. Now I have a dream: I want to do the Giro d’Italia cycling».
Margherita pizza: «Friendships are created among young people diagnosed with leukemia and the beautiful thing is that, even if they return home to distant places, they continue to be involved in the project. Everything they have received they want to donate. At the end of the treatment process you receive a little red booklet that tells you our entire journey and where you can see that there is a beginning, but also an end.”
