Viola turns the magazine over and over in her hands. She's already read it cover to cover, but she can't put it down: maybe because she still can't tell if the reader it's meant for is her or her little sister Mimosa. The magazine—called Occhiolino—is a small revolution. It's Italy's first children's publication that uses stories, games, comics, curiosities, and drawings to introduce kids to the world of people with disabilities.
The goal is to spark children's curiosity. "Using language and images suited to them, we try to take the smallest readers by the hand and walk them along a path of growth through our values of inclusion and solidarity," explained Massimo Maggio, director of Cbm Italia Onlus, the organization behind the publication. "Today's children will be tomorrow's adults, and we have a duty and responsibility to guide them. Better still if we do it with the freshness and wonder they teach us." The first issue, published in July, was dedicated entirely to Uganda—land of great lakes, a beautiful country where blindness and disability are widespread even among the youngest. What does it mean for a poor child to have cataracts? Can it be treated? Can children with physical disabilities in their legs play and do sports? These are the kinds of questions Occhiolino set out to answer simply but thoroughly. Viola especially loved Cibì, a young rhinoceros who, through his travels in the Global South, introduces readers to Cbm's work and projects for people at risk of disability. In the July issue, for instance, Cibì accompanied a Ugandan boy to the hospital as he regained his sight after cataract surgery. But Cibì also drove medicine and relief kits by jeep during the Nepal earthquake, and distributed eyeglasses and wheelchairs to the poorest villages in South America.
"Explaining mental disability would be much harder," Viola's father says, a bit ruefully, turning to her. He can't see her, but Mimosa makes a face as if to say: "Why? It might be harder to make the adults understand, but for kids it would still be different." Viola smiles. Occhiolino, maybe, is simply for every child—with or without disability.
Giulia Galeotti, 2016