Laudato si’ echoes through Sardinian valleys
By Cecilia Seppia
Women victims of violence, abused minors, young people with disabilities, prisoners, refugees and displaced persons are the protagonists of this story, set in the largest Italian WWF reserve found on Mount Arcosu, in the heart of the natural park of Gutturu Mannu, 20 kilometers from the city of Cagliari. Four thousand hectares of uncontaminated beauty, where the poor, the vulnerable, the least ones in the evangelical sense, not only find a "home" but live immersed in it, cloaked in the white mantle of the moon, which in Sardinia, who knows why, seems to caress the landscape amid the deer, roebuck, wild boar, rare birds and a thousand other animal and plant species.
From Silicon Valley to Sardinian mountains
To tell us more about the project, “Oasis of the Deer and Moon,” the brainchild of the duo WWF and Domus de Luna, is the Foundation’s President, Ugo Bressanello, a successful telecommunications manager who, at the height of his career, decided to drop everything in order to dedicate himself to young people in difficulty. What made him push the “reset” button, and leave his comfortable job as Media Manager at Tiscali, was his loving encounter with that adopted child, whose glance, he says, “made me understand that there’s a whole new universe to discover, that I wanted to be useful elsewhere and that I could put money to good use in another way, to give a chance to those who don’t have a mother and father.” And so, in Sardinia, where he had previously moved from Silicon Valley for work, and together with his wife Petra and other children, he began to open homes for abandoned children, just as the government was closing orphanages in Italy. Abandoning his suit and tie, Bressanello quit talking about marketing strategies and development plans to handle baby food, bottles and diapers. "I was thinking of taking a sabbatical year," he continues, "and dedicating myself to this world - then I took a liking to it, because seeing faces transform from sad to happy, fills you up, gives you much more than what you give, and for almost twenty years now this has been my life. During this time, also making use of his managerial skills, Bressanello has managed to guarantee hospitality and care to children up to three years of age and to expectant mothers or women with newborn children suffering in situations of drug addiction, prostitution, violence and poverty. He then turned his attention to abandoned adolescents with family problems; to parents of children forced to spend long periods of time in hospitals far from home; to children with mental illness. But his "multinational of solidarity" does not stop with the construction of these homes. Domus de Luna, through the Locanda dei Buoni e Cattivi (Inn of the Good and Naughty), a villa-restaurant in the Sardinian capital, offers the possibility for young people, mothers released from the community, and those indicated by the Juvenile Justice Center, to reintegrate into society and the job market; it founded 'Exmè, a symbolic place, an alternative to the street culture. Once an abandoned civic market in one of the most degraded neighborhoods on the outskirts of Cagliari frequented by drug dealers, and where illegal betting and animal fights were commonplace, here young people can now gather to enjoy music, art and sport as a means of expression with educational possibilities: just one response to the rampant phenomenon of school dropouts. Concretely, since the beginning of the Covid pandemic, Domus de Luna helps 5 thousand families in difficulty, giving a shopping bag of food to those who’ve lost their job. And here we are, in 2019 at the Oasis of the Deer and the Moon.
The reserve
In the '80s, this was a private reserve where poaching and hunting of Sardinian deer were practiced, threatening the extinction of the species. Thanks to a major fund-raising campaign, the WWF was able to buy most of the area, dedicating itself to safeguarding the territory which went from hosting a few dozen specimens to more than 1500, with important interventions to protect their habitat. The geographic area here has a rather uneven morphology: it is characterized by long valleys in which impetuous streams flow and pools form, and whose capacity is drastically reduced in summer. The fauna present is of extreme interest, while from the point of view of the flora, the reserve is home to an extensive Mediterranean forest dominated by holm oak and cork trees and rich undergrowth. However, the enormous efforts of the WWF were swept away in a moment by the exceptional flood of 2018, which in addition to causing deaths and damage in various parts of the region, destroyed the reserve, wiping out all the pathways and ravaging the vegetation. Faced with this havoc, a few years after Cyclone Cleopatra’s furious passage over the island, a kind of 'miracle' occurred. Mankind, among the primary culprits of the systematic destruction of the environment, the despot who sows death, becomes instead the doctor who heals. In fact, it is here that the collaboration with Domus de Luna and the Juvenile Justice Center of Cagliari was conceived. Thanks to this project, young detainees of the Uta Prison, and others under probation measures, are engaged in the maintenance of the natural heritage and protection of biodiversity, with the help of technology for the protection and prevention of fires and new floods, as well as the launch of new structures and systems for energy efficiency, designed to reduce the environmental impact to zero.
The beauty of integration
But not only this. "The some 80 young people who come to work here,” explains Bressanello, “welcome and care for the tourists who arrive. They are employed in the refreshment areas, where they serve traditional food and typical Sardinian wines to offer visitors a journey through our land, also through taste, but they also devote themselves to social agriculture by harvesting and processing medicinal plants, producing honey ... It’s a project that combines three words: environment, social commitment and future, with the aim of giving work and redemption to people who have very different stories and this is perhaps precisely what characterizes our project: we welcome women victims of violence, young people with disabilities, down syndrome or autism, young people with criminal backgrounds, drug addicts. People with different stories that in this 'paradise on earth' find the opportunity to work together, learn new trades, enjoy wonderful sceneries."
"This closeness, this integration,” continues Bressanello, “generates very positive experiences: people enrich each other; they learn to love each other, they see hope rising from heaps of rubble. In the beginning, only male inmates came to us, and the Oasis seemed a bit like a 'barracks', with its language and manners that were not exactly polite or refined; then, with the arrival of women and the disabled, there was a turning point. A familiar, serene climate was created, educated and respectful, and that's why we moved towards mixing things up. Here, deep relationships are created and the environment, nature is fundamental; it's the glue! For the inmates, whom we pick up every morning with a minibus, it's even more so. They live all day in prison, enclosed by four walls and a thousand bars; then, when it's their turn, they come here and find themselves immersed in this infinite and beautiful area that provides them with another kind of refuge, a home, but outside in the open air, where they can hear the water running, the deer braying, the wind on their faces. In these years none of them has ever given us a problem!" Domus de Luna also offers tailor-made didactics thanks to a group of specialized educators and psychologists who incorporate in their sessions environmental issues and topics such as growing up, life choices, and discovering new passions and talents.
Laudato si’ themes
"I have collaborated with some priests in my life, first and foremost with Don Mazzi, but I am not one who knows the catechism well,” jokes Bressanello, “and yet I have seen with my own eyes what extraordinary things can come from the encounter between wounded nature and the person who is equally put to the test. There is a spark of new life that one gives to the other, the environment to man, and then in this osmosis, I recognize the path to Good with a capital ‘G.’. Much of what we do here at the Oasis is contained and spoken about in Pope Francis' encyclical. It's not just integral ecology. It is justice, solidarity, charity in the fullest sense, the desire to take care of this common heritage also by countering rampant consumerism, with choices marked by solidarity, with investments in things that will remain and it is right that they remain intact for future generations. Going beyond the logic of immediate satisfaction and sacrificing oneself for the environment, knowing that others will enjoy it. We do not raise our voices, far from it! We are accustomed to the wonder of silence here, but perhaps through this project we can also launch an appeal to politicians so that responsible choices can be made also from that direction."
Tears of gratitude
Bressanello has millions of stories to tell, but there is one anecdote he confides to us. "Throughout these years I have witnessed many memorable episodes that give me the strength to continue on this path. There is a young man, a detainee, who has been coming to the Oasis for a long time now. He doesn't talk much; he's rather shy. Given his skill with woodworking, at first, we thought we’d have him restore an enclosure damaged by the flood. He would come in, grab his tools, start scraping, and constantly wipe his eyes. I thought it was the sawdust and I was also worried that this dust would hurt him, but instead, they were tears of gratitude: he felt useful, he felt free. There is another young man who died a short while ago from a tumor, after so much suffering and restlessness, years spent in and out of prison, a rehabilitation community: here he had found peace and just before he died - he almost couldn't stand up - but he still came to work: he told others about the beauty of this place, the joy of having had this opportunity, and perhaps this too, Pope Francis would say, is Laudato si'."
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