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Health Therapy is a programme of ideas and practices devised and implemented by the neurologist Riccardo Scarzella (1925-1991), coordinator of the Social Initiative activities of the Piera, Pietro and Giovanni Ferrero Foundation. The programme assesses the overall condition of individuals with the purpose of maintaining the state of health described by the World Health Organisation as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not just absence of illness or infirmity”. The programme puts forward and monitors the implementation of Health Therapy for individuals in the Ferrero Foundation community who have reached retirement age, an age that is potentially critical given its need to adapt to a new psychophysical situation.
Three aspects were taken into consideration: the biological aspect linked to the body and how it functions; the mental and psychological aspect, obviously linked to affectivity and the exercise of higher intellectual functions; the social and environmental aspect. Over time, these aspects have become real testing grounds where the Ferrero Foundation has developed strategies and collected results that are now more accurately contextualised in the “Successful Ageing” paradigm.
A new concept of elderly people
Through the social project, the Foundation offers Ferrero Seniors (Group employees who have completed 25 years of service) a new concept of old age with its programme of creative, recreational and social activities, accompanied by social and healthcare services.
The Foundation helps senior citizens to perceive ageing as a chance to discover new opportunities.It promotes a different, positive idea of the third age, which can be a period of richness that enhances the social capital of individuals and the legacy of values, experience, wisdom and humanity that distinguishes elderly people.Life in the Foundation leaves no room for solitude and marginality because everything takes place in pursuit of creativity, hard work, personal growth, involvement, social relations, discovery and fulfilment of everyone's specific potentials. New stimuli arrive from intergenerational encounters and voluntary service that follow the conviction that we can learn and be useful at any age.
The Foundation guarantees social and healthcare services on a daily basis.
Besides courses that enhance motor skills and aim to combat various pathologies, a network of collaborations has been activated with specialist medical centres including the Macula Foundation in Genoa, the Institute for Cancer Research and Treatment in Candiolo, the European Institute of Oncology in Milan, the National Cancer Institute in Naples and the San Raffaele Scientific Institute in Milan.
Health Therapy
Groups for Activities, Meetings and Solidarity
Taking care of the quality of life of elderly people, cultivating sociability, relationships, efforts and knowledge: the numerous social, recreational and cultural activities carried out at the Ferrero Foundation helps seniors experience the third age as a chance to discover new opportunities.
Every day in Alba, the doors at Via Vivaro 49 open for Ferrero Seniors (Group employees who have completed 25 years of service) and their spouses. Over forty activity groups are organised and run by the Seniors themselves with the help of the personnel and under the supervision of the Foundation's medical service. Nearly two thousand people are in the user pool and daily attendance averages around eight hundred people.
The Foundation is the point of reference and guardian of values and experience not only of former employees in the Alba area, but all over Italy. In 1990, it set up the Meeting and Solidarity Groups (G.I.S.). There are over sixty G.I.S. groups active at a regional level, wherever there are retired Ferrero Seniors who worked in production plants or in the Company sales network. The G.I.S. groups replicate the Alba community model in terms of size and activities that the Foundation supports financially and otherwise. One or more coordinators, depending on the size of the group, take responsibility for periodically inviting their ex-colleagues to meetings that provide stimuli for maintaining their psychophysical well-being. Trips and shared initiatives in group contexts build upon the shared working history, offering an incentive to spend fuller and more mindful days.
Every day in Alba, the doors at Via Vivaro 49 open for Ferrero Seniors (Group employees who have completed 25 years of service) and their spouses. Over forty activity groups are organised and run by the Seniors themselves with the help of the personnel and under the supervision of the Foundation's medical service. Nearly two thousand people are in the user pool and daily attendance averages around eight hundred people.
The Foundation is the point of reference and guardian of values and experience not only of former employees in the Alba area, but all over Italy. In 1990, it set up the Meeting and Solidarity Groups (G.I.S.). There are over sixty G.I.S. groups active at a regional level, wherever there are retired Ferrero Seniors who worked in production plants or in the Company sales network. The G.I.S. groups replicate the Alba community model in terms of size and activities that the Foundation supports financially and otherwise. One or more coordinators, depending on the size of the group, take responsibility for periodically inviting their ex-colleagues to meetings that provide stimuli for maintaining their psychophysical well-being. Trips and shared initiatives in group contexts build upon the shared working history, offering an incentive to spend fuller and more mindful days.
Together with my family, I wanted to create a nursery school that could be a "family" place, where children could play, enjoy workshops, grow day by day as protagonists of their progress, and be stimulated by the activities and the connection to Seniors of the Foundation who, with their respectful presence and their wisdom, know how to pass down traditions.Maria Franca Ferrero
Il Nido, the company nursery school
Opened in 2009, Il Nido was designed with the aim of achieving maximum environmental sustainability and equipped with an on-site kitchen that uses organic products. The purpose of Il Nido is primarily to serve as a place for children where their development and learning is observed and stimulated and where the foundations are laid for broadening the spheres of experience, relationships, potential and diversity of each child.Opportunities are offered to seniors who take part in activities envisaged in the educational plan for the Ferrero nursery school. Experiences enjoyed with the "grandparents", the Ferrero Foundation seniors, stimulate the children to achieve and develop relational affective independence more easily.The children look forward to relaxing moments spent with the seniors, preparing cakes and biscuits, making decorations and toys linked to festivities, looking after the vegetable garden, telling stories and reciting nursery rhymes.
The activity of the Ferrero nursery school was described in a publication edited by Battista Quinto Borghi and Beatrice Tobruk: Growing together.
"Il Nido" Ferrero, the story of an experience (Edizioni Junior 2013).
The activity of the Ferrero nursery school was described in a publication edited by Battista Quinto Borghi and Beatrice Tobruk: Growing together.
"Il Nido" Ferrero, the story of an experience (Edizioni Junior 2013).
A master's programme for young researchers
Since 2009, the Ferrero Foundation in Alba and the University of Turin have been promoting a post-graduate master's degree in “Food and Human Nutrition Sciences and Technologies” named after Michele Ferrero. The Master's degree is intended for select young researchers who have studied in various scientific sectors. It is meant to allow them to complete interdisciplinary training, tackling research and development issues on new food products, quality control and improvement of the production chain processes.
With its study plan, the post-graduate Master's Degree course aims to train specialists with scientific knowledge in the fields of technology, medicine, biology and chemistry. Graduates of the course receive wide-ranging and complete training in the elements that can influence decisions during the creation of new food products and the reformulation of existing products. It prepares them for careers in food manufacturing industries, research and development laboratories, and consultancy firms. The results of the Master's programme are gratifying and bear witness to the soundness of the training: many of the people who have successfully completed the programme in its various editions have found job opportunities with the Ferrero Group or other companies.
Visit the www.masterferrero.unito.it > website
With its study plan, the post-graduate Master's Degree course aims to train specialists with scientific knowledge in the fields of technology, medicine, biology and chemistry. Graduates of the course receive wide-ranging and complete training in the elements that can influence decisions during the creation of new food products and the reformulation of existing products. It prepares them for careers in food manufacturing industries, research and development laboratories, and consultancy firms. The results of the Master's programme are gratifying and bear witness to the soundness of the training: many of the people who have successfully completed the programme in its various editions have found job opportunities with the Ferrero Group or other companies.
Visit the www.masterferrero.unito.it > website
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