CThere are projects that arise from a plan and others that take shape from an emotional urgency. “C’è Da Fare” belongs to the second category. It was not born out of strategy, but out of necessity. A need felt first as anxiety, then as shared responsibility, and finally as a concrete commitment. It is Donna who told it to iO Donna Silvia Rocchi, Milanese architect and co-founder together with the actor, author and musician, Paolo Kessisoglu, of theassociation that deals with youth problems. His is not an epic narrativebut a lucid and profoundly human reconstruction of how, sometimes, an intuition becomes something that can no longer be ignored.
“There is work to be done” and the discomfort of young people. Journey into the association of Silvia Rocchi and Paolo Kessisoglu
It all starts in 2022, around a solidarity sporting event: a 24-hour team cycling race, tiring and all-encompassing. Kessisoglu participates with a born team to support a project on youth hardshipin collaboration with the Gaslini Pediatric Hospital and the ASL 3 of Genoa (Local Health Authority). The theme is that of so-called “social retreat”those young people who lock themselves in their rooms, interrupting contact with the world, a phenomenon that exploded into public debate after the pandemic, but already present for some time. That experience, however, for Paolo and Silvia does not end with the race. Energy, relationships, the awareness that those funds raised respond to a real emergency remains with us.
From the title of a song, a declaration of responsibility
It doesn’t take long for that question, which never stops coming back, to find a direction. A few months later, during a holiday, sitting on the beach of a Greek island, Paolo expresses his desire to do something that lastswhich goes beyond his artistic work. But it’s like he doesn’t know what to do. And it is precisely here that Silvia, with her more operational perspective and long organizational experience, transform that intuition into a concrete possibility.
The name already exists, “C’è Da Fare”, and it is anything but random. It is the title of a song written by Paolo Kessisoglu after the collapse of the Morandi Bridgean expression that in Genoa has almost become a collective declaration of responsibility: there is no time for explanations, there is no room for indifference, there is something to do.
Paolo Kessisoglu and Silvia Rocchi are the two co-founders of the association that fights youth hardship C’è da Fare
How the C’è da Fare association was born
Setting up an association, however, is not a symbolic gesture. It means taking on economic, legal and organizational burdens. The Third Sector Code provides stringent rules, including significant initial capital. And, when the figure emerges, 15,000 euros, the doubt is legitimate. But something revealing happens: in just over three weeks, seventeen people choose to support the project with a direct economic contribution. Professionals, managers, parents. People who recognize the problem because they have seen it up close. Because, it must be said: youth distress is not an abstract concept, it is present in families, in schools, in daily relationships. And so off we go, C’è Da Fare is born. It’s 2023.
Youth distress: many forms, a common root
The first focus of the association is social retreatexplains Rocchi, but it soon becomes clear that this type of discomfort it is just one of the manifestations of a broader malaise. Self-harm, eating disorders, substance abuse, suicide attempts: different forms of the same suffering. The data is very hard: in Italy suicide is the second cause of death among young people under 25 years of age. In Europe it is the first. It is estimated that one in five young people have engaged in self-harming behaviour, often invisible to official statistics. Rocchi recounts the disorientation of a generation of parents who discover these phenomena from their children’s storiesoften too late. Stories that emerge in classes, on social networks, on platforms like TikTok, where even pain is measured, counted, exhibited. Ignoring all this is no longer possible.
The “Safe Team” model: treating discomfort without isolating young people
“C’è Da Fare” chooses a specific path: do not offer direct clinical supportnot working directly with children and families, but financing and making structured projects within public health possible. THEThe heart of the intervention is the model called Safe Teaminitially developed at the Niguarda Hospital in Milan.
This is an intensive outpatient protocol that takes care of children in serious situationsoften after a visit to the emergency room for suicide attempts, avoiding hospitalization when possible. For a year, young people and their families have access to a multidisciplinary team several times a week composed of neuropsychiatrists, individual psychologists, systemic psychologists, educators.
A central element is taking care of the familywhich often becomes an active part of the therapeutic process. Parents, in turn, undertake support courses. The result is a system that does not isolate, but accompanies.
All the volunteers at one of the association’s initiatives to raise funds
From the hospital to the territory
The model is replicated. Today “C’è Da Fare” finances projects in Milan, at the Niguarda hospital, in Rome at the Bambino Gesù Pediatric Hospital, in Belluno with the ULSS 1 Dolomiti, the Local Social-Health Unit and in Florence with the Meyer Hospital. In Genoa, with Gaslini, a different project was born: bring psychologists to the areain underserved areas, through the “Gaslini Diffuso” program.
The operation is always the same: the hospital provides spaces and structured staff; “C’è Da Fare” finances the additional figures through public tenders, requesting reporting and monitoring of the results. A system that allows not only transparency, but also the construction of a database useful for giving scientific solidity to the model and, in the future, to influence public policies.
Talk about mental health without fear
Alongside clinical projects, the association works on the cultural front. Sporting events, public initiatives and, more recently, theatre. Thus was born the show “C’è da Laride”staged between August and November in various Italian cities, on the occasion of World Mental Health Day on 10 October. The idea is simple and powerful: talk about mental health in an accessible waywithout trivializing it.
Different artists talk about personal experiences, parent-child relationships, fragility. The audience actively participates, sending anonymous questions to be answered by mental health professionals on stage. It is a way to break down the stigma, create bridges, make the topic shareable.
Find your way when you don’t know where to start
But there is also another strong need among those that have emerged over time and it concerns orientation. «Many families don’t know who to turn to when they perceive discomfort – explains Rocchi – For this reason “C’è Da Fare” will open its first physical space in Milanthanks to a municipal tender won by the association. It will not be a therapeutic center, but a place of first listening and guidance, with the support of psychologists. A starting point to not feel alone in the most confusing moment.
Stay listening
“C’è Da Fare” does not promise miraculous solutions. It does not replace healthcare facilities, it does not offer shortcuts. It does something equally necessaryhowever: creates the conditions so that those with skills can work betterso that the children are intercepted earlier, so that the families do not remain isolated. Nobody is a hero and nobody saves themselves. Silvia Rocchi knows this well. It is an awareness developed over time, through shared stories, encounters and fragilities. This is why what he always carries with him is not a formula, but a simple and at the same time radical attitude: stay listening.
«It is from listening that energies are born, that directions are clarified, that possible answers take shape – continues Rocchi – It is also what is too often missing in the relationship between adults and young peoplewhere the rush to intervene exceeds the ability to understand. You can’t always help in the right way, but you can learn to be there better. And, sometimes, it’s already a beginning.” Youth distress exists, concludes Rocchi, it is not a passing emergency and “dealing with it requires time, competence and responsibility”. “C’è Da Fare” chose to do it this way: without rhetoric, with seriousness, putting together dream and concreteness. And, above all, without looking the other way.