Niko tells us that last April on April 2 at the table where we are eating, at the large PizzAut restaurant in Monzaright in the seat next to me, he was sitting President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella. For the opening of his second restaurant (the first is in Cassina De’ Pecchi), Nico Acampora, the founder of the project PizzAut – the first restaurant in Italy that only employs autistic children – invited everyone, even our President who surprisingly accepted the invitation. “What we did speaks about the fundamental rights of the Constitution,” explains Niko. And it goes like this: a “Democracy based on work” and a Democracy in which “All citizens have equal social dignity” requires that everyone has access to work, also the 600 thousand autistic people in Italy, where 1 in 77 children is born with autism.
These are the children who found work with Nikos, whose son, also autistic, was the inspiration for the project. Niko tells us that for years he was trying to figure out what to do and how to do it, trying to find an answer to the thought that plagues every parent of a disabled child: to find a way to fit him into society: “There are few alternatives for an autistic boy in Italy today – he explains -. The future of people with autism has three paths, either they stay at home all day with their parents, classically with one of the parents – especially mothers – sacrificing everything to help them, either they go to a day care center, or enter in a residential institution. A boy in an institute costs the state 200 thousand euros, a day center costs 50 thousand euros. I hired 35 guys at the two PizzAut restaurants, which if we do the math is a saving for the state of at least 7 million euros, in addition to the fact that today there are active subjects who pay contributions”.
But the main thing is that they are happier children: “Their lives have completely changed, many of them lived the so-called “selective muteness”, that is, they only talked to their parents and today they are in charge. Some didn’t touch anyone and today they are hugging their colleagues, me, even customersยป.
What did Nico Acampora get? It’s an extraordinary success when many said it wouldn’t make it. He has collected lives and stories, each of which fills the heart and moves. It is hard to hold back the tears when the children hug Nikos, serve at the table, come to take orders. Letizia comes to our table to serve us pizzas: Nico asks her, “What’s the best thing about PizzAut?”, “Everything,” she replies. “What’s the hardest thing?”, “Carrying 4 pizzas together.” We laugh. The atmosphere is happy and carefree, Niko is able to underestimate everything, to always see the lighter side of stories that are not light: “Here there are 35 children who would be called “disabled” and 5 that people call “normal” and which others have come to call an “ethnic minority”. We still laugh at the reversal of the politically incorrect, a way of being that unites every person who eats at PizzAut in a moment of joy. Perhaps this is also the reason why Nico’s restaurants are always super booked. Or maybe even because the pizza is great.
