Pirelli and Inter Campus together in New York
together in New York
Maria, 11 years old, born in America to Mexican parents, dreams of becoming an astronaut. Carlos, 11 years old, also has Mexican origins and dreams of becoming a doctor. Sofia, instead, comes from Peru, she is also 11 years old, and would like to be a singer.
These are some of the names, and dreams, of the children who attend the Joseph Pulitzer Junior High School in Queens, New York, which has just joined the large Inter Campus family.
Since 1997, Inter Campus, the Social Project of the Nerazzurri Club, has promoted the game of soccer as a right of all children, as a moment of aggregation, socialization and social development.
Generally, there is a tendency to associate Inter Campus projects with third world countries, favelas in Brazil, for example, or fields in Angola. Yet, unfortunately, it is not unusual that Inter Campus coaches find themselves operating in "developed" realities, those of "our" world, which too often contain social contradictions and pockets of inequality that inevitably end up hitting the “weakest”, the children.
It is therefore not surprising that Inter Campus has decided to start a new project in New York. In the city known for opulence and progress, in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of Queens, there is the school attended by Maria, Carlos and Sofia: The Joseph Pulitzer Junior High School, also known as the Magnet School of Innovation and Applied Learning. 90% of school students live below the poverty line. The vast majority of students have Hispanic origin and, unfortunately, there are also cases of homeless students. It is in this context that Inter Campus wants to make a difference: to promote, through the game of soccer, the social inclusion of children, and to support their educational path, together with local coaches.
There are 40 middle school children participating in the new project, many of them are young girls. Because here in the United States, soccer has become super popular among girls, thanks also to the success of the U.S. Women's national team, which won its fourth World Cup in 2019.
Pirelli will support Inter Campus in this new project. Since 2008, the long P has supported various initiatives in the countries in which Inter Campus operates, including Romania, Mexico and Russia.
New York is an obvious next step in the expansion of the partnership, as Marco Crola, CEO of Pirelli North America, explained during the inauguration of the project:
“We are excited to be part of the new Inter Campus program, here in the US. The sponsorship of this project in New York, where we have our offices, was a natural choice for us. We also strongly believe in the positive values of sport: teamwork, commitment, passion. For these reasons, together with Inter Campus, we want to promote the universal role of sport as a tool for social change and the empowerment of children all over the world ".
Because for Pirelli game is everyone's right, and a more inclusive world can also be built by kicking a ball.
