GIÒ CAN DO for Namibia 2026 is presented as a concrete contribution to the International Volunteer Year for Sustainable Development 2026 (IVY 2026), demonstrating how volunteering can transform personal experience into common good, mobilize communities, inspire younger generations and create lasting bridges between countries. Promoted by Associazione “Giovanni Manicone” ODV, a volunteer organization based in Matera, Italy, the project embodies the spirit of IVY 2026 through skills-based volunteering, youth engagement, education, health, inclusive sport, disability inclusion, active citizenship and international cooperation. The Association was born from a deeply personal experience: the premature loss of Giovanni Manicone and the decision to transform personal pain into something capable of generating opportunities and common good. From this experience came the guiding message “Transform difficulties into opportunities.” What began as a personal choice has progressively become a collective commitment involving volunteers, schools, young people, families, teachers, sport educators, health professionals, citizens, companies, institutions and partner organizations. The project is personally coordinated by Filomena (Milena) Manicone and Gianni Fontanarosa, together with the other volunteers of the Association, who contribute their time, educational and professional experience, skills and energy. A particularly important contribution to IVY 2026 is the Association’s commitment to bringing its lived experience of volunteering directly into schools and encouraging younger generations to become active citizens and future volunteers. Through GIÒ CAN DO and numerous educational activities developed in the local community, primary and secondary school students are involved in meetings, workshops, awareness initiatives, sport experiences and direct encounters addressing volunteering, solidarity, disability inclusion, health, organ and tissue donation, bullying and cyberbullying, emotional and relational education, inclusive sport and active citizenship. Students are not a passive audience: they prepare for the encounters, explore the themes and the stories of the people they will meet, prepare questions and materials, interview athletes and guests and participate directly in shared experiences. The aim is to move from information to relationship, from relationship to awareness, and from awareness to participation and volunteering. Sport, School and Solidarity are interconnected dimensions of this educational approach. Sport becomes an educational language through which young people can experience inclusion, responsibility, respect, cooperation and participation. When working on disability, the Association does not simply explain disability to students: it creates opportunities for them to meet the person before the disability. Athletes and people with disabilities become speakers, participants and protagonists, sharing their abilities, experiences and aspirations. By bringing its volunteering experience into schools, the Association shows young people that volunteering is not something distant or reserved for extraordinary people. Everyone has something to contribute: time, knowledge, professional skills, creativity, sport experience, attention to others or simply the willingness to participate. Volunteering therefore becomes a concrete form of citizenship education. This is one of the strongest connections between GIÒ CAN DO and IVY 2026: volunteers do not only respond to present needs; through their example and testimony they can inspire the next generation of volunteers. GIÒ CAN DO for Namibia extends this model beyond Italy. It is not simply a mission lasting a few days, but a continuing volunteering journey that begins in Italy, reaches Namibia and returns to Italy. Long before volunteers leave for Namibia, the project is built in the local community through school activities, awareness-raising initiatives, fundraising campaigns, benefit concerts and public events involving students, families, citizens, volunteers, companies and institutions. Different people contribute according to their possibilities and skills. Companies and sponsors provide resources and support, while teachers, sport educators, health professionals and volunteers contribute knowledge, professional experience and time. The first edition of GIÒ CAN DO for Namibia took place in 2025. Community mobilization in Italy also made it possible to prepare and send an entire container of educational, sport, health and other materials to Namibia thanks to the contribution of citizens, organizations and companies. During the first mission, volunteers worked with schools, orphanages, pediatric health settings and organizations supporting children and people with disabilities. However, material assistance was never the final purpose. The most important result was the creation of relationships and partnerships between people and organizations in Italy and Namibia. Those relationships continued after the volunteers returned home. In 2026, the International Volunteer Year offered an especially meaningful context in which to continue and strengthen this journey. From 11 to 23 August 2026, the Association returned to Namibia for the second edition of GIÒ CAN DO for Namibia, demonstrating that the first experience was not an isolated initiative but the beginning of a long-term cooperation pathway. Italian volunteers worked alongside Namibian partners including Ascent Empowerment and Development Foundation, Special Olympics Namibia, Namibia Tennis Association, Bernhard Nordkamp Centre, Side by Side and other community organizations. Activities included inclusive sport, Unified Tennis, the Motor Activity Training Programme (MATP), health education, educational activities, skills development and community participation involving children, young people, athletes, families, caregivers and people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. A fundamental principle is that people with disabilities are not passive beneficiaries: they are athletes, participants, partners and protagonists. Volunteering should not simply act for people, but create opportunities to act with people, recognizing everyone’s abilities and contribution. GIÒ CAN DO for Namibia is also based on reciprocity rather than one-way assistance. Italian volunteers share educational, sport and health-related skills, but they also listen, learn and return home enriched by the knowledge, experiences and relationships shared by Namibian athletes, educators, volunteers, families and organizations. This reciprocal dimension was publicly highlighted by Special Olympics Namibia at the end of the 2026 experience, describing the visit as an opportunity to understand, share, learn and grow together and recognizing that meaningful change depends on the contribution of coaches, teachers, families, sponsors, partners and volunteers. This reflects a principle at the heart of GIÒ CAN DO and of our contribution to IVY 2026: no person and no organization creates change alone. Sustainable inclusion is built through relationships, shared responsibility and communities working together. The project does not end when the volunteers return to Italy. Experiences and relationships developed in Namibia are brought back into Italian schools and communities through meetings, educational activities and testimonies on volunteering, disability, inclusion, solidarity, health, sport, relationships, international cooperation and global citizenship. In this way, young people can see the complete cycle of volunteering: an idea born in their own territory, developed through volunteers, schools, citizens, professionals, companies and institutions, transformed into international cooperation and then brought back into their classrooms as knowledge, experience and inspiration for new action. The model can therefore be summarized as ITALY → NAMIBIA → ITALY. In Italy, volunteering creates awareness, participation, partnerships and resources. In Namibia, Italian and Namibian partners share skills, experiences and responsibilities and create inclusive opportunities together. Back in Italy, what has been learned becomes education, testimony, awareness, active citizenship and potentially new volunteering. Then the cycle begins again. The continuity and credibility of this volunteering model have also received significant external and institutional recognition. In 2026, Associazione “Giovanni Manicone” received the national Volontari@Work recognition for skills-based volunteering at the Italian Chamber of Deputies in Rome. In May 2026, during the Internazionali BNL d’Italia at the Foro Italico in Rome, the Association received recognition for its work with students, schools, sport and inclusion, presented by the Italian Minister of Education and Merit, Giuseppe Valditara. In June 2026, Filomena (Milena) Manicone and Gianni Fontanarosa were selected as speakers at EXPOAID 2026 – “Io, Persona di Valore”, the Italian national event dedicated to disability inclusion promoted by the Italian Minister for Disabilities, Alessandra Locatelli, where they shared the Association’s experience of connecting School, Sport and Solidarity within the life project. These recognitions are not the purpose of GIÒ CAN DO; they provide external evidence of the continuity of a volunteering experience that has progressively connected schools, communities, institutions, sport and international cooperation. By submitting GIÒ CAN DO for Namibia 2026 to the IVY 2026 Knowledge Portal, Associazione “Giovanni Manicone” ODV wishes to contribute more than the account of an international mission. We wish to share a model of volunteering that begins in the local community, enters schools, inspires younger generations, mobilizes different professional skills, involves people with disabilities as protagonists, crosses national borders, creates reciprocal relationships and then returns to young people as education and inspiration. From personal pain to common good, from one family to a community, from volunteers to schools, from students to active citizens and future volunteers, from Italy to Namibia and from Namibia back to Italian classrooms: GIÒ CAN DO shows how volunteering can generate new volunteering. This is our contribution to IVY 2026: demonstrating that everyone can contribute something, that no community grows alone and that sharing time, skills, experiences and relationships can transform difficulties into opportunities. Transform difficulties into opportunities.
GIÒ CAN DO. Giovanni can. And we can too, with his guidance.