Hospitalised children, people with disabilities, older people and other fragile patients often live with real isolation, anxiety and few chances to simply take part in something enjoyable. What is missing is a steady offer of free activities that can genuinely lift someone's mood, not just occasionally but as something people can count on.
Mototerapia meets that need directly, using motorbikes as an unusual but effective way to bring wellbeing, inclusion, self-esteem and positive relationships into people's lives, with the effect often reaching the families around them too.
The project
Mototerapia brings motorbikes to the people who need them most: once a month, volunteers visit the Salesi maternal and children's hospital with electric bikes, meeting a largely new group of hospitalised children each time, and throughout the year the project carries out roughly ten more visits to other facilities and communities working with fragile people, using combustion bikes outdoors where appropriate.
Young volunteers are at the heart of the project, not only as riders but as active participants in the experience itself. Taking part builds their own relational skills, sense of civic responsibility and commitment, while contributing directly to the wellbeing of the people they visit and strengthening the wider social fabric of their community.
Who the project is for
The project's beneficiaries are hospitalised children, people with disabilities, older people and other fragile patients, who take part in the motorbike visits, alongside their families, who share in the moments of connection the visits create, and the young volunteers themselves, who grow through the experience of taking part.
Project name: mototerapia
Proposing organisation: ASD SORRISI E MOTORI
Area of intervention: Inclusion & Social Development
Country: Italy