Charity

Together for an Egg – Artists & Children at work in favour of ANTICITO Rome, Friday 8 April 2011 Accademia di Francia – Villa Medici www.kidsforcharity.it – www.anticito.org

Ceramic, polystyrene, cloth, photographic and chewing-gum eggs! The Kids for Charity Association is putting on the initiative Together for an Egg – Artists and Children at Work: a charity exhibition in favour of the fight against the cytomegalovirus, with an auction of artistic eggs made by a group of over sixty children and six internationally famous artists belonging mainly to the Pastificio Cerere, one of Italy’s most important contemporary art centres. The children, from a variety of schools in the Capital, with the artists, Ottavio Celestino, Gianni Dessì, Oliviero Rainaldi, Pietro Ruffo, Giuseppe Salvatori and Maurizio Savini, all joined by a common objective – the life of a child – will all be making their voices heard this Easter with an egg – the symbol of life. The children and their slogan, ‘making and donating’, will personally give the proceeds of the auction to the association. The Anticito Association, a charity founded by Andrea and Giada Benetton in 2010, supports research and solidarity projects for mothers and children who have contracted the cytomegalovirus while in the womb. It fights for the recognition by the National Health Service in Italy of the need for widespread screening and expensive immunoglobulin therapies, pending the production of a vaccine. Together for an Egg – Artists and Children at Work is a Kids for Charity format that has been studied to set up solidarity projects by children for children through art, a highly ethical and spiritual tool. All such actions are inspired by principles of solidarity, treatment, sharing and participation – bringing children into the world of voluntary work. This initiative, just as all the other initiatives of the Association, is supported above all by families. It is a movement committed to deal a blow to the sense of resignation among the younger generations by providing education programmes from a very early age, educating the young to feel a part of the community. Our conviction rotates around the idea that by sensibilising the very young to the idea of social solidarity and voluntary work we will be offering an answer to the crises within our society. Roberta Lanzara President of Kids for Charity Onlus www.kidsforcharity.it info@kidsforcharity.it The History of Anticito Onlus Charity The story I am about to tell is our story, the motivation behind our desire to create this charity, to help people and the lives of parents and children. It is, of course, unfortunate – we are hardly experts in the field! – that we are dealing with the extremely difficult cytomegalovirus, the very objective of this association. It all happened back in 2008 when whilst expecting our third daughter I thought I had caught a bad bout of ‘flu that was making me weaker and weaker. As a matter of fact, I had caught the CMV. This virus, if it strikes the foetus within the first few months of pregnancy, may have serious effects such as: convulsive syndromes, microcephalus, hydrocephalus, calcification and cerebral development defects and cerebral atrophy. The first moments of panic and one thousand questions immediately poured forth. Surrounded by so much uncertainty, confusion and lack of information we started finding out what had befallen us and how we could help our baby daughter to be healthy. Thanks to the help of expert doctors we discovered that, although unknown to most of the medical world, there was in fact treatment to be had out there. It was just, unfortunately, difficult to find and highly expensive. Luckily for us we were able to benefit from the treatment available but from the very start we were painfully aware of the absurdity – indeed the impossibility – of those people who did not possess health insurance or economic resources to try and save the life of their child. That’s why, from the very start, we decided to do something about the situation. The Anticito Onlus Charity sets out to help families come out from beneath the blanket of ignorance that revolves around the cytomegalovirus, providing professional medical assistance, spreading scientific knowledge and sensibilising the institutions involved. Andrea e Giada Benetton Anticito Onlus www.anticito.org info@anticito.org