We interviewed Ilaria Campi, co-founder of Campacavallo, an association born in Milan in 2006 from the intersection of education, nature, and the performing arts.

Ilaria has a degree in Educational Sciences, is a professional working on educational farms and with Cavalgiocare®, is in charge of I.A.A. (assisted interventions with animals) projects, and is a specialist in equimotion and isodynamics (T.E.I licensed). She teaches equitation and has been developing educational courses focused on relationships and movement for almost twenty years.

Campacavallo is a Milanese association that proposes activities of affectionate equitation, circus arts, and outdoors experiences for children and youngsters. It is located in Allegricola, a private green area of 10,000 square meters in the northwest area of Milan, between the Bosco in Città and the Parco di Trenno: a context that preserves a strong agricultural identity and offers a precious space of contact with nature.

At the heart of the project are relationships: respect for the body, for others, for animals, and for the time needs of everyone. It is an approach to education that puts listening, trust, and the possibility of growth in first place in a welcoming environment that isn’t judgmental.

Today, Campacavallo is part of the Cascina Ri-Nascita project, supported by the Fondazione Prossimo Mio. Click here to read the project

1. Campacavallo is a reality that has been rooted in Milan for more than 16 years. How was your association born?
IC: Campacavallo was born out of an idea I shared with my associate, Gabriella Baldoni. We were two young educators working in a very complex social context – the area of Quarto Oggiaro in Milan – in close contact with kids living on the streets and with minors being followed by social services.

I had a strong passion for horses, and had also dealt with education while at university. Gabriella, instead, taught circus arts, and worked in the performing arts world. Studying methodologies that used horses as pedagogical tools and social circuses as educational tools, we asked ourselves, “Why not unite these two skills, and create something great for Milan?”

Out of this intuition and the desire to offer children a different educational experience, Campacavallo was born.

2. Campacavallo has always worked on the body, movement, and emotions. How important is it, today, to offer kids a protected space in which they can express themselves and reconnect with their own natural rhythms?
IC: We live in a context in which we are constantly connected to social media, to image, and to performance. To always be at our best, always “top,” seems like a requirement. However, this often separates us from authentic relationships and from contact with deeper realities.

For this reason, we believe that it is fundamental, today, to offer kids protected spaces in which they can slow down, enter into contact with nature, construction significant relationships – for example, with horses – and freely express themselves with their bodies and through movement.

In our projects, we work to create non-judgmental contexts in which all children can be welcomed for who they are, and not for what they should be. It is in these spaces that skills, emotions, and interior resources, often unexpressed, can emerge.

3. What contribution will Campacavallo bring to the Cascina Ri-Nascita project?
IC: Campacavallo will have a two-pronged central role in Cascina Ri-Nascita.

On the one hand, thanks to events, summer centers, activities for schools, and weekend proposals for families, it will work to create opportunities for exchanges between Milanese citizens and the women and children housed in the Cascina. The objective is to favor integration and a relationship with the local area.

On the other hand, it will propose individualized therapeutic journeys focused on children that have lived situations of direct or indirect violence in their family contexts. These are minors who carry deep wounds, and who need a protected space in which to re-elaborate trauma and to reconstruct trust.

4. Even if the Cascina is not yet operational, activities have already started. How has the support of the Fondazione Prossimo Mio made this possible?
IC: Fondazione Prossimo Mio is a reality that has believed in this project from the beginning. It was among the first to support us in a concrete way, and this has allowed us to begin some activities dedicated to children even before the Cascina opened.

In particular, thanks to its contribution, we have been able to welcome into our educational summer activities seven minors coming from violent contexts. When we told them that all this was possible thanks to the support of the Fondazione Prossimo Mio, they were very happy.

5. What do you hope Cascina Ri-Nascita can represent to the children who participate in your activities?
IC: First and foremost, Cascina Ri-Nascita represents a place of hope: for the women and children who have lived violent situations, but also for the minors who, in different ways, will enter into contact with this project.

We hope that it can be a space of rebirth, growth, and possibility, a place in which they can feel welcomed, seen, and accompanied on a journey of personal reconstruction. The children who will participate in our activities will be the women and men of tomorrow. We want them to become people who are more aware, more sympathetic, and more respectful of others, capable of forming healthy relationships based on trust.