7 March, 2020 Civil Week Milano 2020 – Medical Choices and a Living Will – Workshop in English

Many of you and many Italians may not know that in 2017 a law was passed to give everyone in Italy the freedom to decide how we want be treated in the case of a serious illness. The type of medical care and the chance to decide in advance if we want certain procédures or not.
A workshop has been organized by Charity ‘Presenza Amica, in English aimed at the large English speaking community of Milan. This workshop is not just for medical care but other decisions we would want to make now for our future.
Many of us are accustomed  to writing our will early in life as it is the norm in our countries of origin. Not so in Italy, until very recently and only for large assets or property.  However now we can decide on our health treatment even though we may not be able to communicate due to illness.

This information is important for us all so I hope to see you on Saturday 7th March.

PRESENZA AMICA ONLUS – A NON PROFIT ORG
RSVP direzione@presenzamicaonlus.it

WHY DON’T YOU PLAY IN ADVANCE?

The Civil Week Milano 2020 will engage the English speaking Community of
the City with a special event, which topic is life. Since the concrete
possibility of making choices about one’s future, both in advance and at the
same time during the illness – sanctioned vigorously by Law 219/2017,
despite having facilitated the reopening of the discussion on the dignity of
dying – did not determine the massive compilation of the Advance Care
Planning or “Living Will”,we decided to organize an event that focuses on
this topic.
Infact, Advance Care Planning represents a statement of wishes and care
preferences, as shown by the data acquired by the House of Rights of the
Municipality of Milan. This lack of opportunity is even more pronounced in
the foreign communities in the territory: as of January 1, 2019, 268.215
people coming from a very high number of states in the world were resident in Milan: almost 50% of them was in the age group 25/54 years.

Most importantly to notice is that these represent 19.5% of the entire population residing in our City (they must be added to that non-quantifiable number of people of other countries and languages who use English to communicate).

Probably for Italian native speakers the reason for this lost
chance is hidden behind the cultural difficulty of talking not only of death
itself but above all of one’s death, in other sections of the population it is
feared that it may depend largely on linguistic questions. Although the
English speaking residents are just over 3.000 units, a good part with Italian citizenship, they represent for the theme the ideal sample on which we would like to concentrate the highly inclusive project, designed to bring
about – through the use of an innovative tool – a conversation about the
values we give to life today, with the end in mind.

Gaming will help us to start a conversation. Certainly the interactive mode already used last Autumn during our Parentesi di Conversazione, declined as each part of the event in English, allows to camouflage the evaluation of a series of statements as very important, important or unimportant, by disrupting conscious awareness. Therefore the activity, perceived as a game, will bypass even unconscious fear and will help to enter the dimension of consciousness to finally open that conversation bracket on what we would like or not want to live in a hypothetical future of illness and during the last part of life.

After the projection of a short PowerPoint in video mode that recalls the contents of Law 219/2017, accompanied by the sound of a harp played live by the clinical musician Teodora Cianferoni, the instrument will be presented and used. The speakers, including an expert psychologist on the topics addressed, will guide those present in a series of interactions during the activity and then dialogue on what emerged during the shared experience.

Furthermore at the end of the event, bilingual forms will be made available to the participants for the compilation of the Advance Care Planning together with a glossary to facilitate their understanding.

The purpose of the initiative is to involve the English speaking Community so that it knows, understands and has the legal right to take advantage of an
important state law which represents the freedom to “play in advance”, by
making a useful choice for one’s own future and for that of one’s loved,
Anglophones or not.

By Chiara F.R. Caraffa, General Manager
PRESENZA AMICA ONLUS – A NON PROFIT ORG
RSVP direzione@presenzamicaonlus.it
Tel +39 331 1908 781