(Massa-Carrara) On July 13, 2010, André Manoel Caloje, a former street child, now a student at the Kala Kala center in Angola, recieved a life saving heart operation while traveling in Italy, thanks to the generosity of Inter-Milan FC and the Tuscany Region. His story follows.

Not yet 14, André had lived most of his life on the streets in the poorest parts of Luanda. With a mentally handicapped mother, without any certain information about his father or brothers,  André learned how to look after himself thanks to an innate strong and forceful character. Life wasn’t easy either with children of his own age. He was born with six fingers on each hand. To avoid being laughed at by the other children he cut off the extra finger on his right hand.

His life changed when he met the Salesians at the Kala Kala Center (which in the local language means work center). André  was entrusted to the Salesians by the local authorities. The Center accepted André and showed him the possibilityof a new life. He found electronic laboratories, wood and metal workshops, building training, soccer fields, games rooms, and classrooms, at his disposal, things he could not have imagined in the past. He was invited to join in the holistic program being offered to a large number of local youngsters and street children.

André then joined the Salesian Polidesportivo Dom Bosco (PDM), sports group which operates in various centers around Angola. It provides informal education to about 5,000 boys and girls through soccer, volleyball, basketball and handball. In 2008, PDM established a collaboration with the Inter-Campus program, run by the Italian Inter-Milan FC and which sponosrs soccer training schools in some of the poorest parts of the world. At Kala Kala, Inter-Campus supports about 350 children providing them with needed sports equipment, and twice a year they send professional coaches to offer training courses to the local coaches.

Thanks to this collaboration between the sporting expertize of Inter-Milan FC and the educative skills of the Salesians, Andrè was chosen to take part in the 1st Inter-Campus World Assemby in September, 2009 , visiting Florence, Siena and Milan. The Asembly gave the youth the opportunity to learn from each other about their cultures, traditions, and hopes. Additionally, all of the young athletes were given a medical check-up. It was during this routine physical that the doctors in the Meyer Pediatric Hospital  in Florence discovered that Andrè had a heart malformation which without treatment would have kill him.

On July 12, 2010 Andrè went into the Apuano Pediatric Hospital in Massa-Carrara. The following day he had a visit from the President of Inter FC, Massimo Moratti, and his daughter Carlotta, President of Inter Campus. The next morning André had a complicated heart operation which took five hours to complete. The surgery went well and within twenty days of so he will be able to return to Angola. The operation was made possible by the involvement of Inter FC and the Tuscany Region who covered the costs.

André’s story which captivated  the readers of SportsWeek, an insert of the popular Italian sporting daily paper La gazzetta dello Sport, shows how team work between those working on the front line with street children and those promoting solidarity is always a winner.