The Italian Presidency has recognized 28 young citizens whose everyday acts of courage, creativity, and service challenge the stereotype that teenagers are disconnected from civic life. At a ceremony held on May 7, 2026, at the Quirinale, President Sergio Mattarella awarded the 2025 Alfieri della Repubblica honors, spotlighting individuals who represent a generation actively building stronger communities.
Why This Matters:
• Recognition of youth impact: 28 adolescents under 18 received Italy's highest civic honor for acts ranging from emergency rescues to anti-waste technology.
• Theme of solidarity: The 2025 edition centered on "Experimenting and Communicating Solidarity," countering narratives that depict young people as socially apathetic.
• Presidential message: Mattarella urged Italian adults to listen to youth voices more attentively, noting that demographic shifts risk marginalizing younger generations.
• Four collective awards: Entire school classes received plaques for collaborative projects promoting inclusion and mutual respect.
Stories of Rescue and Resilience
The honorees include individuals who acted decisively in life-threatening moments. Viola Menichetti, 17, from San Donato Milanese, trekked through a snowstorm for over two hours after her father fell 100 meters into an icy ravine on January 4, 2025. Despite losing a boot and facing darkness, she reached a point with mobile signal to activate emergency services.
Riccardo Cremonesi, 17, performed the Heimlich maneuver on a classmate choking on candy during a mathematics lesson in San Martino Siccomario, displaying the composure that likely saved a life. In Tarcento, 13-year-old Nicolas Treppo dove into a swollen torrent to pull out a drowning peer, then administered mouth-to-mouth resuscitation until paramedics arrived. Inerio Vacca, 14, from Arbus, responded with similar presence of mind when a friend lost consciousness after a dive, dragging him ashore and reviving him.
These acts underscore a pattern: quick thinking paired with basic first-aid training. The Quirinale noted that many recipients had participated in scouting groups, the Italian Red Cross, or community civil-protection units, reinforcing the practical value of youth preparedness programs.
Innovation as a Tool for the Common Good
Technology featured prominently among this year's honorees. Childhood friends Matteo Morvillo, 19, and Amedeo Valestra, 18, both from Massa Lubrense, developed "Cucinalo", an app that suggests recipes based on photographs of refrigerator contents. The platform aims to reduce domestic food waste by guiding users through meal preparation with ingredients they already own. Their collaboration illustrates how peer networks can translate personal interests into solutions with environmental impact.
In Turin, Leonardo Feigello, 17, converted a red Apecar into a mobile donation hub parked outside his high school. A sign invites passersby to take what they need or leave surplus food and clothing. The initiative, dubbed "CondividApe" (Share-Ape), has turned a vintage three-wheeler into a neighborhood fixture for informal redistribution of goods.
Rocco Antonio Commisso, 12, from Roccella Jonica, rescued a Caretta caretta turtle entangled in fishing nets and plastic debris during a sea excursion with his father in January 2025. The animal was transferred to volunteers for treatment and later released. His school subsequently adopted a plush turtle mascot, embedding marine conservation into its curriculum.
Friendship Across Differences
The Presidency highlighted bonds that transcend physical and social barriers. Emanuele Amodio, 18, and Karol Pastore, 17, both from Ostuni, have shared a desk since primary school. Karol uses a wheelchair due to a degenerative condition, and Emanuele has remained a constant, unobtrusive presence—assisting with daily routines while respecting his friend's autonomy. Their partnership exemplifies what the Quirinale called "inclusion through small daily gestures."
Emilia Zarrone, 14, from Alife, built a similar friendship with a classmate on the autism spectrum. Their relationship, which began in elementary school, became the subject of a book written by her companion, documenting how trust and consistency foster meaningful connection.
Maria Sole Di Biase, 15, who arrived in Italy from India at age four, now volunteers with children who have Down syndrome, mirroring her own integration journey. Salwa Ez-Zahiri, 17, a Moroccan immigrant in Genoa, translates her experience navigating Italy's bureaucratic and linguistic landscape into volunteer work with Save the Children, helping other families acclimate.
What This Means for Residents
Italy's demographic reality—one of Europe's oldest populations—amplifies the stakes of intergenerational engagement. President Mattarella acknowledged that "demographic change induces inattention among adults," suggesting that shrinking youth cohorts risk being overlooked in policy and public discourse. His remarks framed the Alfieri initiative as a corrective, signaling that young voices warrant structured platforms.
The national certification system for volunteer competencies, approved in 2024 and active since June 2025, is designed to bridge this gap. Skills acquired through service are now formally recognized in academic transcripts, job applications, and public-sector competitions—a mechanism to convert altruism into tangible career capital.
Recent data support Mattarella's emphasis. The 12th Istat Bes Report, published in November 2025, showed that social participation among 14- to 19-year-olds climbed from 39.6% to 44.7%, outpacing older age groups. Eurostat findings indicate that 30.9% of Italians aged 16–29 engaged in civic or political issues online in 2025, above the EU average.
However, a February 2026 Allianz Foundation study revealed a contradiction: 53% of young Italians feel politics ignores their interests, yet 47% participated in collective action in 2025, focusing on human rights, climate, education, and anti-discrimination. The disconnect points to a generation mobilizing outside traditional party structures, favoring issue-driven campaigns over electoral politics.
Overcoming Personal Adversity
Several awardees transformed health challenges into advocacy. Sara Pignatelli, 19, from Castello d'Agogna, continued her studies while undergoing chemotherapy for primary mediastinal lymphoma, maintaining a positive outlook and aspiring to become a sustainable-construction engineer. Marco Mazzariol, who turns 15 this month, lives with Duchenne muscular dystrophy and serves as a spokesperson for Parent Project APS, participating in inclusive theater workshops.
Dalila Brocculi, 17, born prematurely, volunteers at Rimini's neonatal intensive care unit through the association "La Prima Coccola" (The First Cuddle), offering support to families experiencing similar fragility. Her story, the Presidency noted, "infuses courage into hospital corridors."
Poets featured among the honorees as well. Jasmeen Kaur, 16, from Fabbrico, uses verse to explore loneliness and inadequacy, earning public recognition that she described as validation that her work "hits the mark." Claudia Savarino, 19, from Agira, writes poetry as an alternative to scrolling social media: "It makes me feel free," she explained. Both exemplify how creative expression can anchor identity in an accelerated digital age.
Presidential Call for Listening
In his remarks, Mattarella criticized the tendency to focus media attention on youth violence and delinquency while ignoring more numerous positive examples. "It would be a distortion to let these episodes obscure the many good stories," he stated, framing the Alfieri program as a corrective narrative strategy.
He emphasized that young people "communicate with new tools, in unfamiliar languages, often inaccessible to adults." Rather than distrust, he advocated for "respectful, non-invasive suggestions," allowing adolescents to experiment, find their own paths, and become protagonists of their futures.
The President linked wellbeing to factors beyond economics: "It also depends on the friendships between people, on the sense of security that comes from perceiving others who collaborate for the common good." His framing positions social cohesion as infrastructure, measurable in networks of mutual aid rather than GDP alone.
The Broader Context
Italy's Alfieri della Repubblica program, established in 2010, awards up to 30 attestations annually. Eligibility is restricted to individuals under 18 at the time of nomination, who hold Italian citizenship or meet specific residency and schooling criteria for foreign nationals. The honors span study, culture, science, arts, sports, volunteering, courage, and civic responsibility.
Compared to European counterparts—such as the European Solidarity Corps, which focuses on structured placements for 18- to 30-year-olds, or Scotland's Saltire Awards, which quantify service by hours logged—the Alfieri distinction is purely symbolic, carrying no financial reward. Its value resides in presidential endorsement and national visibility.
The UK's British Citizen Youth Award and Rotary Young Citizen Awards operate on similar principles, as does Germany's German Engagement Award, though the latter aggregates multiple local competitions. France's Youth Ambassadors for Community Service Program, sponsored by the U.S. Embassy, emphasizes leadership training for disadvantaged high schoolers aged 15–17.
What distinguishes the Alfieri model is its institutional origin—direct conferral by the head of state—and its breadth of criteria, encompassing not only service but intellectual, artistic, and athletic achievement. This holistic approach reflects an Italian tradition of honoring merito (merit) across domains, rather than siloing recognition into service categories.
Four Collective Honors
Beyond individual awards, four school classes received plaques for collaborative solidarity projects. The Quirinale did not name the schools in its public statements, but emphasized that these groups demonstrated "cooperation, reciprocal respect, and active participation" in initiatives promoting inclusion. The recognition underscores a shift toward valuing systemic cooperation alongside individual heroism.
The Verdict on Youth Engagement
The 2025 Alfieri cohort—spanning ages 11 to 19, from Tarcento in the northeast to Roccella Jonica in Calabria—paints a mosaic of a generation that resists easy categorization. They perform CPR, code apps, write poetry, rescue wildlife, navigate bureaucracy for immigrant families, and support peers with disabilities. Their actions, the Presidency concluded, "express the will to improve conditions for those in difficulty or vulnerability."
Whether these 28 stories catalyze broader participation remains an open question. The Istat data suggest momentum, but the Allianz Foundation study reveals persistent alienation from formal politics. The Alfieri awards function less as recruitment tools than as cultural signals, broadcasting the values Italian institutions wish to amplify.
For residents, especially parents and educators, the takeaway is pragmatic: first-aid training, volunteer networks, and structured service opportunities translate into measurable impact. The honorees did not act alone; they moved within scaffolds—scout groups, Red Cross chapters, school-based initiatives—that equipped them with skills and confidence.
Mattarella's plea to "listen to young people's questions and aspirations" carries implications for policy design, media representation, and intergenerational dialogue. In a country grappling with low birth rates and emigration of young talent, the Alfieri program offers a counter-narrative: adolescents not as problems to manage, but as architects of solutions already underway.
