As part of the OMNE project, some specific actions are put in place to encourage the “Promotion of Activities for the Health of the Citizen and the City”. Already in 2015, with the project APRIRE NUOVI CIELI, the Environment Office of the Municipality of Castelfranco, in collaboration with ULSS 2 Marca Trevigiana – Prevention Department, had developed a series of initiatives on the theme of walking that aimed, at the same time, to raise awareness of citizens towards the discovery of the territory and awareness of the environment.
The project FOGLIE D’ERBA was born in 2016 from the idea of a journey to be accomplished in the Municipality, with the aim of offering activities for the elderly. For this reason, the guests of the Retirement Home “D. Sartor” were accompanied in a series of thematic walks to discover special places. Physical activity, combined with the narration of the personal stories of the elderly, has fostered a relational path among the participants but also an important social exchange with the young people involved in the project.
The actors of “Foglie d’erba” were not only the elderly and the organizers of the project, but also young people. As part of the work school programs, many students from the various colleges of the territory accompanied the elderly to walk between Via Ospedale and the Park of Villa Bolasco favoring a ground of exchange, glances and stories, between people of different ages, knowledge and experiences: “the arc of existence, retraced in the light of the variations of walking modes, is marked by the different interactions with the landscape, with the things encountered, with others” (Duccio Demetrio).
Some simple actions -walking, conversing, listening, being together- have encouraged the sharing of life experiences with the same naturalness with which, as Walt Whitman said, “I bend over and linger to observe a simple blade of summer grass”.
In the project some students of the Artistic High School “Rosselli” have also played an important role, in charge of documenting the walks, waiting, resting and resting spaces of the people involved in the walks. Through interviews with the guests of the Centre, the students created docufilms that were screened in preview in the Retirement Home “D. Sartor”.
Since 2017 “Foglie d’erba” has accompanied guests of the Retirement Home “D. Sartor” and the children of the Therapeutic Community “Il Gelso”, both in summer and autumn. The favorite destinations are the park and the Villa Revedin Bolasco of the University of Padua, the Academic Theatre, the Public Gardens of the castle, the Duomo and the Museum Casa Giorgione.
The project “Foglie d’erba” has involved a substantial number of people, about 650, annually.
