Valerio Ferrante works for the Endas organisation, an association of nearly 400 Italian clubs. They try to carry out nonprofit activities related to culture, education, social assistance, sports, tourism, recreation as well as environmental and civil protection, ensuring in particular the promotion of professional education of young people and workers in the fields of social tourism and sport. Valerio is a proud roman with a heart for travelling the world.
Valerio was still a kid, when he had a profound encounter with the deep power of hospitality, as an expression of true humanity. He remembers a significant moment of ultimate hospitality that not only made him an ambassador of the principle but also changed his life in a fundamental way.
During his childhood, Valerio lived in a very popular neighbourhood in Rome. His mother and he rented a flat in a building which they called 'the colosseum'. It was a large apartment building, and the architecture of it was similar to the – nowadays overcrowded – Colosseum in the touristic city centre of the capital of Italy.
One day, their landlord decided to kick his family, just him and his mother, out of their home. The family faced a sudden situation of being homeless. But Valerio remembers not only the misery. He also recollects the friendly faces and endless invitations of their neighbours.
Everyone who could, offered his family a place to stay. So, they stayed for a month in different apartments. 'Even if we didn't have anything to offer in return to our hosts. We had lost everything', Valerio says. For some of us, this seems surreal, for others it'll feel like the right thing to do. Especially when you are Italian, maybe.