Global Solo Challenge: Can rehabilitation come from the sea?

Global Solo Challenge: Can rehabilitation come from the sea?

​Simone Camba, an entrant in the Global Solo Challenge, is a policeman from Cagliari and a passionate sailor who in 2013 founded New Sardiniasail, an amateur sports association with social objectives, which earned him the “Sailor of the Year 2021” title.


One could say that Simone won’t be “alone” on his GSC adventure. He will have the company of a crew of 300 young people involved in “La Rotta della Legalità (The Route to Legality)”, a social inclusion initiative that helps young Sardinians’ and migrants’ integration in the labour market through sailing and sea related activities.


A large virtual crew that will follow him and cheer him on from afar. Among them, as Simone himself tells us, there will be:


Y., 23 years old, arrived in Italy from Nigeria in 2015. I met him in the office at the police station, and after coming on board and sailing just twice he immediately developed great seafaring skills. Only then I found out that before boarding the boat that brought him from Libya to Italy, he had never seen the sea in his life. And now he won’t stop looking at it.”


“F. was a young troubled Sardinian lad, with a past of drug abuse and crime. He came on board after a training programme at sea, then joined me on a trip from Zakynthos to Cagliari (with a single stop in Messina). Now, he no longer makes use of drugs, has a job, and never stops smiling.”


“Young M. had no criminal record and never committed a crime but suddenly found himself involved in the world of cyberbullying – one click and an image that went viral in just a few hours, and it was too late to realise that he had committed a crime. Since then, he has understood the seriousness of what he did, the trauma it caused to the victim, and worked hard with us to regain his sense of awareness and autonomy.”


When and how did the “Rotta della Legalità” initiative start?
Nine years ago, having collaborated with a number of local associations, I decided to create an association open to young people from all over the world, New Sardiniasail, a sailing school accessible to all, that aims to promote this sport, especially offshore sailing, which in Cagliari has always been a sort of taboo (except for the great Andrea Mura and Gaetano Mura). Here we don’t have the culture of offshore sailing, far from the coast, and I wanted to send a message to promote it.


New Sardiniasail’s social objectives were introduced after I talked to some of my colleagues in the Police districts of Savona and Peschiera del Garda, who told me about their recovery and social reintegration initiatives for young people in difficulty, organised in collaboration with Father Antonio Mazzi. I realised that we could do something similar in Cagliari, so I got in contact with the local Juvenile Justice Centre and we started off with a pilot initiative, 4 months with 4 young people in difficult situations. Today, almost eight years later, they have trained and grown up and all have a stable job and a family. It was the first encouraging sign of the project’s positive impact.


So, “Rotta della Legalità” – the name of the initiative – has been working continuously since late 2014 and running six-months projects. Since then, we have welcomed on board 300 young people, using sailing as an educational and training tool; a great school of values that teaches collaboration, respect, and mutual support.

How are projects organised and where do you work?
Each project lasts approximately 6 months: 60% of the activities take place on land – including physical preparation and a range of workshops including sail repairing – and 40% are held at sea. We have 3 or 4 afternoon meetings a week and depending on the weather we decide whether to train and do workshop activities or go out to sea.


At the moment we use a Bavaria 44 for social activities with psychologists and experts and a Farr 40 for more technical activities and racing practice. In fact, recently we have started including a competition calendar in our projects, getting a few of our young crew members involved at the weekend: this has attracted the attention not just of the rest of the young people involved in the initiative, but also of the media.


Between 2020 and 2021, thanks to the collaboration between Cagliari’s Lega Navale and III Zona FIV, we have been lucky enough to get access to the Olympic facilities in Cagliari, Luna Rossa’s base, where we used professional training equipment with qualified instructors, obtaining excellent results.


 Currently, we are working on new nautical facilities, in a 1,000 square metre area, which will include a fully equipped gym, workshop labs, and our offices. Here we will also dedicate time to dinghy sailing in the 420 class, to introduce our youngsters to sailing.


For all these activities we receive funds from private and technical sponsors (especially for the equipment), as well as small public contributions. The rest is all self-funded.


In the last few weeks, we also launched an awareness, prevention, and environmental sustainability project with local secondary schools, to introduce young students to sailing, with trips at sea, and promote environmental protection, by suggesting corrective actions to damaging habits, especially with regard to plastic pollution. We also collaborate with the Police in activities aimed at educating young people about cyberbullying and the crimes it entails.

How do you measure the association’s impact and how do you keep supporting those who have taken part in the project?
We started by involving young people from the Juvenile Justice Centre in Cagliari and extended the initiative to unaccompanied foreign minors who arrive in Sardinia. The heart of the project remains sailing, but the main objective is to help these young people to learn a trade linked to this sport, in order to introduce them to the labour market.


Through all types of communication, from the website to social media, we are able to promote our activities and gain visibility with local businesses that contact us to offer job opportunities, mainly in the nautical sector, but also in catering and other sectors. In the end, what matters to us is to be able to offer training that helps them to grow with a purpose in life, help them find their place in society and learn how to behave, reducing the struggles of an often difficult daily life and the risk of getting involved in criminal activities.


But this isn’t all. After having worked with each one of these 300 young people for six months, you inevitably form a strong connection with them – for me, it’s as if I were their uncle – so it comes natural to continue to support them and help them with their little day to day needs, from passport renewals to finding accommodation or a job.


How will this crew follow you during the GSC?
Thanks to our new nautical facilities, we will set up an IT area where the various moments of the GSC and my route will be followed and shown in real-time, with a “shore team” that will include the young people who have taken part in our projects.


In his short bio as an entrant to the GSC, Simone quoted Walt Disney, “If you can dream it, you can do it”. And so he did.

Fair winds and lots of miles to Simone and his young crew!


Simone Camba
Simone was born in Cagliari on 18 April 1977 and on that same day, just a few hours earlier, his parents had been at sea on a fishing trip. His adventure with boats and sailing started when he was six years old. In the summer, he spent his days in a small fishermen’s village on the western coast of Sardinia. When he was 15, in order to earn money and buy a boat of his own, he left school and started working. At 19, after starting a career in the Police, he bought his first sailing boat and from that moment on he has travelled over 30,000 miles at sea on board different types of sailing boats. A great believer in training as a means to sail safely, over the years he trained and qualified as an offshore sailing instructor, attended first aid courses, and obtained diving and ISAF certifications for Oceanic sailing.


The social inclusion project promoted by Simone Camba and his association New Sardiniasail shares many of the objectives of the GSC, which with the collaboration of an independent entity, TÜV Thüringen Italia, ISO 20121 standards sustainability certifier, aims to promote environmentally, socially, and financially sustainable events that in this case concretise in adopting an accessible and inclusive regatta format, with the use of different boats and limited budget, recommending to limit the use of fossil fuels, and supporting remote-working for the entire team.


The Global Solo Challenge will set off in La Coruna in September 2023. Currently, 50 boats have enrolled. The route: simply all the way around the world single-handed, non-stop, passing by the three great capes, Good Hope, Cape Leeuwin, and Cape Horn.

 

Click here for more on the Global Solo Challenge

Text: Raffaella Ramondetti

Image: Simone and his young crew