Starting this year, there is an Italian angel who spurs the most disadvantaged children of the Malindi suburbs to study and grow in the name of sport-education.
Thanks to the initiative and generosity of relatives and friends of Edoardo Sbianchi, the student of the Catholic University of Milan who died in a tragic car accident last September 2021, the eleven best students of the Ganda Primary School who participate in the program of the soccer academy Real Malindi, founded by Freddie del Curatolo with coach and social worker Davis Badili Kenga, have received a scholarship for the entire 2022 school season and other schoolmates are ready, if they improve their performance, to follow them and be able to take advantage of essential help, for them and their families.
Edoardo loved Kenya and had visited that project (here is his touching memory on Malindikenya.net), playing a game with the boys of Real Malindi and donating shoes and goalkeeper gloves, the role he preferred.
So his parents Fabio and Francesca, his brother Ludovico and many schoolmates and their parents, along with other friends, decided to marry in his name the cause of the academy and to help the many families who live just above the threshold of survival.
Some of the boys who received the scholarship, such as John Okumu, Matsaki Mwaringa and Daniel Ruhusa live with their parents and 4 or more siblings in a single room inside a mud hut, others have lost their fathers and their mothers do not have a stable occupation, almost all of them consume only one meal a day, almost always polenta and vegetables. Thanks to the availability and kindness of the principal of Ganda Primary School, Nicholas Mwangala, with a public meeting with the parents of the pupils, the philosophy of the academy was explained and the desire to continue the scholarship initiative for future years, for those who deserve it, expanding if possible the beneficiaries to other students who will improve their performance.
Edoardo was a sportsman, passionate about soccer and a willing student who knew where he wanted to go. Now, in his memory, we hope to give a future to a group of boys who, through the values he held dear, will have the possibility of a better life and be an example to many other peers who risk every day to fall into the great trap of discomfort, drugs and crime.