April 24 2016 is a date that will always remain in the heart of Liberi Nantes.

After a beautiful morning at the April 25th Stadium together with our friends from Afro-Napoli United, for a friendly match organised thanks to Sisal Matchpoint from an idea by Pierluigi Pardo to send out a message of non-violence in sport, the afternoon turned out to be just as special.

We were invited by Luca Attanasio and the Earth Day organisation to the Village for the Earth  in Villa Borghese to tell someone extremely special about our activities and our association – someone who is not just an important spiritual figure but a man who speaks our language, and who fights every day for the same cause as us, sharing our battle against prejudice in the hope of achieving integration: Pope Francis, the Pope of the Refugees, who has put the theme of people fleeing from war and violence at the centre of his pontificate.

Our president Alberto Urbinati, accompanied by the players from the team, our coach Salvatore Lisciandrello and some of the people from the Italian School (including our little Dignity), outlined to the Holy Father what Liberi Nantes is about, giving him as a gift the T-shirts of camiNantes and the Work Team so that everyone was present at this important meeting, as well as that out our ground in Pietralata, where we hope one day to be able to invite him.

Here, we share with you the audio and images of this memorable experience.

Transcription of audio:

Thank you, and I would like to thank the Holy Father for receiving us here on this stage today. We are extremely excited. I will try to very briefly tell the story of Liberi Nantes, which is a long story now – almost nine years that we have welcomed refugees and people seeking asylum and giving them the possibility to freely practise sport.

It is a project made up of various activities, of which the best known is the football team. We also take people on trekking excursions in the countryside and in town because we think that walking is another important way to help people to discover our city and our region.

To welcome people, a roof and something to eat is not enough: it is also important to make these young people feel an integral part of our society, of our social fabric, and we strongly believe that sport is a powerful weapon to accelerate this process of integration.

Today with me there are most of the players from the football team. But because we also have an Italian school I would like to tell you a short story that I think you will appreciate.

The Italian school is attended by Cristiana, who has with her a child called Dignity. Dignity was born in Brindisi. She was rescued from a ship that arrived from Argentina. The name of the ship was Dignity. She decided to give her baby that name as a message of hope. And we have found her in our school – a message of hope that is important to send out.

There is just one final thing I would like to say. For five years we have run a football ground which had been abandoned. It is in Pietralata, a working class neighbourhood that was lacking in spaces for socialisation. When we went in there we found a number of big problems, as it had been abandoned. We rolled our sleeves up and together with us, the boys who had been in the refugee reception centres rolled their sleeves up and helped out as volunteers. Once again the sports centre is a living place, not just for the 200 or so lads from the centres who get involved every year, but for the whole community of Pietralata including the local Italian residents.

They put in that hard work for nothing, showing the kind of values they have. I like to say that these young people give us a great burst of vitality. To use an economic term: we import their courage. They give us a lot of courage; I personally take a lot of it from them.

Thank you for this opportunity.

If I may, I would like to present the Holy Father with two shirts which represent our association.