The Milan forward built an early connection to Africa and is now on a mission to build a free secondary school in Tanzania.
Giampaolo Ricci's project in Tanzania (Part 2): 'Africa changes you'
Interviews
11 Mins read
There's a real legacy being built by EA7 Emporio Armani Milan's Giampaolo Ricci in the Tanzanian town of Kisaki that is sure to impact children there for many years to come.
As explained in part one of this two-part interview, the 32-year-old Milan forward dedicates his extra energies – through his charitable organization, Amani Education – to finalizing the construction of a secondary school in Kisaki. This will allow children there to continue studying beyond age 12, which is not currently the case for the vast majority of children due to a lack of facilities.
For Ricci, the children's desire to better themselves is one of the core factors behind his desire to improve the situation in Tanzania, where he has regularly visited with his parents since a very young age.
"The most impressive thing, for me, are the kids, the young kids," Ricci explains to the EuroLeague's official website.
"If you ask a young kid there: 'What is your dream. What do you want to do in your life?' They don't answer: 'I want to play basketball, I want to be a doctor…' They just say: ‘My dream is to study.' For me, this is unbelievable.
"Building a school for them could be a really [big] change because only with education, only with knowledge, can you be free to choose your future."
Collaborating with 'angels'
During the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague season, when he must support those children's dreams from afar, Ricci relies on the Assumption Sisters, who conduct the day-to-day construction effort and inspired him over the years to pursue his mission of raising enough money to complete the school.
"The Assumption Sisters [are] our connection to Tanzania because they met my parents when they were young," he comments. "There, the Assumption Sisters are not only nuns, but they work in hospitals, they work as teachers, so they are really important for that population – they are really engaged in everyday life.
"For me, they are really angels because they really think about others. They really do everything for the young guys, the kids, because they know that they are the future of the nation."
Ricci feels privileged to have first-hand experiences in Africa thanks to those trips with his parents, volunteer doctors who lived in Tanzania before he was born and returned often to help build a small hospital and dig water wells in the area, among other projects.
"I try to talk about Africa to my friends, I try to share videos, images, but if you don't live that atmosphere, if you don't go there, it is impossible to understand 100 percent what Africa is and what it can give to you," he says.
"Africa changes you. It changed me and it changes people. I think when you come back from a trip there, you really see everything in a different way. It's difficult to share what Africa is, but I've tried [to do so] every time with words, with images. I suggest that everybody goes there."
A family legacy continued
Besides the many trips there, the letters that his parents sent home even before he was born about their experiences in Africa have a big impact on Ricci to this day.
"When they lived there in 1989 and 1990, they talked with their family here in Italy with some letters," Ricci notes. "My grandfather collected all of these letters over these years.
"One thing that really stayed in my mind is a letter from my mom that says to Africa: 'Dear Africa, how many times we felt too small to help you? How many times we have felt like a drop of a drop? But how many times has the memory of your people who await a better day shaken us? We don't know if we will altogether improve their lives, but we know at least we will at least give meaning to our lives by trying to do so.'
"For me, this is a big thing and it really stays in my heart and my mind. I just want to keep doing what they started, and I think they are happy that they can share through me, through my brother and my sister, this love for Africa."
Raising funds for free schooling
Looking ahead, Ricci aims to finish the construction of the secondary school before making it possible for all the students to not only attend, but live there, without having to pay. Although he understands the difficulty of this, it is something that he hopes to achieve.
"It will be a college where the kids can sleep, can eat, can live, so for sure there is a little fee to pay," Ricci comments. "But in my dream, it is to give to these 400 or so kids the possibility to have a free education, a free school.
"I know that it is a little bit impossible, but I will try. The kids that [have] difficult stories and maybe don't have parents with money. We try to help – we're already trying to help. It is different to help somebody than to give the whole school for free. My wish is to one day maybe get a lot of friends, a lot of companies, that can help me and do this."
Ricci has already started this path towards getting more donors for his philanthropic work in Tanzania, receiving €15,000 in donations from more than 450 people at an Amani Education fundraiser in Italy in December. There is still plenty more work to be done, but with Ricci and Amani Education continuing their work in Kisaki, there are certainly brighter days ahead.