PROJECTS

The Democratic Republic of Congo, a country decimated by the war, in a conflict that has caused more than 10 million deaths, most children and women, has attracted our attention to try to implement a path of Hope, starting up again from education , from art education in the broadest sense of the word. We are talking about a country that has the highest rate of child soldiers and street children, who are left alone, have locked themselves in crime and delinquency. In such a situation the most obvious temptation would be to create an ad hoc project for the marginalized and the abandoned, for the discarded of society. Instead our intent  is to create, initially, a reality above all of inclusion, ensuring all young children receive equal quality care and education, the same training tools and opportunities for growth, through Art, initially through music. A Schola where their differences, even the social ones, intersect in a common denominator, the one of being together, of building harmonies together, of harmonizing the different notes of a musical scale.

The aim is not to give them the illusion to find a job, in a disastrous socio-economic reality, but to give them the tools to build a future by becoming aware of both their potential and the possibility to collaborate with the potential of others to regenerate a better world, which overcomes the selfish conflicts of the human being. In other words, to produce a true collective work of art, that is the result of the exchange of experiences and (inter) personal points of view. Building such a school in Congo means building the Future, building Hope. In recent years we have had the opportunity and the grace to meet many high beauty and artistic sensitivity people, including friends of the Museum of Art and Science of Milan – G. Matthaes whom with we set the foundations for the construction of the Music school in Congo.

The African, Asian and Latin American Film Festival – FESCAAAL in 2020 will turn 30 years old. Associazione Elikya becomes a partner in the project funded by Fondazione Cariplo to increase the cinematographic audience of the Festival with particular attention to young audiences (under 35), foreign communities and the public coming from outside Milan.

The occasion will give life to an innovative and unique project: “cinematographic” concerts, which involve the combination of the vision of a short film with the live musical proposal of Elikya Choir. The intent is to amplify the visual language through the musical language.

Elikya Association, always animated by a deep attention to the enhancement of diversity, proposes “Il Filo del Tempo/TheTtread of Time” as a project to open the dialogue between young and old, to build a bridge between past and future generations that does not let fall the wisdom of whom can grow solid roots, throwing true brotherhood seeds and transmitting the wisdom that comes from experience.

The project wants to bring two worlds together, through music, singing, acting, and Elikya is both needle and thread, which unites these seemingly distant realities: young and old are involved in artistic workshops where the recipients can rediscover the precious value of Time.

The project was born in 2018, winning the tender for the Milan Cariplo Foundation projects; involves three different realities in the Forlanini peripheral area of Milan: guests of La Grangia di Monlué, a voluntary association that manages a shelter, with asylum seekers, political refugees and refugees; the elderly who attend the day center in via Salomone (White houses), managed by the Onos Association; the adolescents of the Parish of San Nicolao alla Flue. The first official phase of the project linked to the announcement, ended in January 2019 and now continues autonomously with events promoted by Associazione Elikya.

The “SENEX” project, a Latin term that in Italian means “elderly”, involves the creation of services, initiatives and interventions designed for the elderly in order to combat loneliness and promote socialization and aggregation. It wants to offer answers to a social group that, today and looking to the future, is increasingly consistent; people who do not need health and care services, but require interventions of an integrative nature, recreational-cultural initiatives, leisure activities that many of them cannot afford because they are low income or because they are alone and excluded from the social sphere. With the implementation of the project, the well-being of a fragile band of the population will be pursued well-being understood not as a lack of disease, but as a condition of a person-part of the community network and not isolated and left to itself.

The project recognizes the need for help of the elderly person in affirming its right to social inclusion and wants to promote positive actions aimed at encouraging aggregative experiences and maintaining an active social life. The concept is to move from assistance to the direct involvement of these people. No longer to be considered at the end of life but at the dawn of a new life, the one of old age. Guide them to live serenely their old age, taking into account their physical, physiological or psychological age limitations.

Greek term that in Italian means “comparison”. The project aims at dialogues that exploit the universal language of music to convey harmonies, knowledge and listening on various themes of society. As a first topic, we thought of a particular theme that is Love. In this age in which we live, we are witnessing a change in the shape of “love.” According to some observations, nowadays it is a rare phenomenon because the capitalist society is based on politics, market dynamics and economic laws; considered a higher value compared the feelings of the human being.

On the one hand, for example, love presents itself as the only space for the self-realization of the individual. However, just because it is the only place where this can happen, the pursuit of individualism is manifested in an extreme way. Paradoxically, in Western culture love becomes indispensable for one’s own realization and impossible at the same time. But if excessive autonomy is synonymous with solitude, then the concept of love and marriage changes its true meaning, becoming a means through which find refuge for this unbearable sense of loneliness, and when this refuge fails it often happens that the “left one” does not accept the return to the first solitude by externalizing its state of mind in violence, in all its forms.

Therefore, as an effective tool of reading and action of the signs of modern times, we have thought of a path that, starting from the base, could make teenagers, young people and adults aware of a new type of language, the one of Love, through a path (psychological-philosophical-theological) conveyed through MUSIC.