Soaring Beyond" is the name of Calabria's first social enterprise teaching young people with Down syndrome and intellectual disabilities to rise above prejudice. Antonio and Mario seem to float above their circumstances, those clouds they carry with them each day. It's the chef's hats on their heads that give them an air of ease. In work aprons, they enter the artisanal workshop and create products brimming with joy—work that, since last December, has freed them from the weight crushing their hearts. In a region as starved for opportunity as Calabria, an initiative like this—one aimed at real employment for people with disabilities—feels like a genuine miracle. To chart a path toward professional skill and personal growth is precisely the mission of this social enterprise, based in Cosenza. For the past four months, Antonio and Mario, ages 30 and 21, along with other aspiring bakers, have been hired by "Soaring Beyond," which also registered the commercial label "BuoniBuoni" (literally, "Good and Good"). The brand now appears on every pastry the young workers produce—goods in high demand and sold across local food shops.
«I love making sweets,» Mario says, working with his solidarity biscuits, «but pizza is really my specialty. I'm saving up my earnings—someday I want to open 'Da Mario,' a real pizzeria.» Like Mario and the educators who support him, his colleague Antonio is also rolling out dough. Some days are harder than others: beyond the biscuits and the seventy kilometers they drive daily to work, they must fill catering orders by evening. «We don't just make pastries,» Antonio points out. «We also sell savory preserves.» The catalog of delicacies at "Soaring Beyond" is indeed varied—and soon it will move to an online platform. From fig-honey cookies to clementine jam, via Tropea onions (naturally) in sweet-and-sour sauce, to olive pâté: there's something for every taste, and everything tastes twice as good. Once for the organic ingredients these young workers use. Once more for the smiles that light up their faces as they make it all.
The project has registered the "BuoniBuoni" label on sweets requested and sold by local food shops
The project has registered the "BuoniBuoni" label on sweets requested and sold by local food shops
Behind this effort to make young people with Down syndrome and disabilities self-sufficient stands "We Are the Others"—a volunteer association that since 2003 has provided them with support. «The association,» explains president Adriana De Luca, «functioned as an incubator for starting up the social enterprise, and after nearly a decade, it continues to support our members both psychologically and professionally.» The volunteers use the Feuerstein method—a teaching approach designed to build practical skills in people with learning difficulties. Some study here. Some learn to use a computer or fill out a postal form. Others handle building maintenance. «We're one big family,» De Luca adds. «We don't receive public funding—only donations and support from benefactors. We work outside all the usual stereotypes, helping others appreciate what society has written off. We don't teach our young people to be 'normal.' We teach them to develop their potential to the fullest.»
Since 2016, "We Are the Others" has also opened a branch in Crotone, where, inside a building seized from the 'ndrangheta, it is exporting the same vision. Always beyond the prejudices of the "others."