Institutional portal - Municipality of Milan

Milan, 1 July 2019 – “Right to birthday” lands for the first time in the public housing of Municipality 8, the initiative born in 2014 by Energie sociali Jesurum in collaboration with the Department of Social Policies, Health and Rights of the Municipality of Milan and which provides for the organization of free birthday parties for families in difficulty. The fifth edition of the project will see the support of the Cariplo Foundation, and of Coop Lombardia which, with its products, wanted to give a good snack to everyone.

“The Right to a Birthday – declares the councilor for social policies Pierfrancesco Majorino – is one of the projects in which I have believed most in these years as councilor, because I am convinced that social policies must not only be concrete help to satisfy essential needs of citizens in difficulty, but also the promotion of sociability and guarantee of the right of everyone, especially the little ones, to live a normal and dignified life. And a birthday is a rite of passage that everyone should be able to celebrate. For this reason we are happy to have managed to make the lives of many children special in recent years and even more convinced that the project must become increasingly widespread. For this we thank Energie sociali Jesurum and all the partners who made the arrival in Municipality 8 possible. We will continue from there with ever more conviction with the aim of reaching the public housing in all the municipalities".

“The Right to a Birthday - adds Michela Jesurum, founder of Energie sociali Jesurum - demonstrates how together, local authorities and private companies can collaborate, combining economic development and protection of our social reality. Today, with public housing, this bet acquires further meaning and value. Thanks to Councilor Majorino and Councilor Giungi. Now I have a wish: that the right to a birthday takes off in all Italian cities together with us."

In recent years, birthdays have been organised, with an average of one every weekend, at the House of Rights of the Municipality of Milan, at the C.I.A.O Association (reception home for prisoners on alternative measures and for their children), at the social cooperative Lo scrigno and, in previous editions, at Casa atelier. The first four years have highlighted the need for greater capillarity across the territory, to allow celebrations close to schools and the places that children live in every day. What also emerged was the importance of an intervention in particularly sensitive contexts and of intensifying the child-elderly relationship implemented during previous editions with the aim of networking needs and responses, knowledge and stimuli, to grow together, in a mutual exchange and in a community dimension.

In 2019, starting from the first inaugural birthday celebrated on 29 June, the public housing of Municipality 8 will also be protagonists, thanks to the collaboration of the councilor of Municipality 8 Fabio Galesi, the municipal councilor Alessandro Giungi and the tenant committees of Cogne 4, Rizzardi 22, F. Cilea and Apennines.

The initiative, at zero cost for the Administration, has been made possible over the years thanks to the collaboration of private partners, Energie sociali Jesurum, the citizens who donated a "suspended birthday" and the parents who decided to celebrate their children at the House of Rights with a paid birthday to leave a “suspended” one as a gift.