2011: Alessandro M. - Merry Boy

The “Alessandro M.- Merry Boy” corkscrew is the product chosen as the 2011 symbol for “The Dream Factory”.

The project that Alessi and Amici dei Bambini have chosen to celebrate our country focuses this time on someone really special: tiny babies still too young to have real wishes of their own, apart from the unique and imperative one of wanting to stay with their mothers. For them, the first Mother-Child Community, managed by Amici dei Bambini, will be built in the Milan area in 2011. It'll be a protected, safe place where new mums with problems will be welcomed with their little ones in that time of need.

2010: Merry Sandro - Alessandro Mendini

“Merry Sandro”, the latest addition to the collection of Corkscrews by Alessandro Mendini, has been chosen as 2010’s posterproduct of “The Dream Factory” project: a partnership between Alessi and the International AIBI - Amici dei Bambini launched in 2006 with the aim - just like Santa Claus - of making dreams come true for children that are being raised in orphanages in many countries around the world.

The Dream Factory’s trip around the world this year will bring the project all the way to Brazil, to fulfill the wishes of 20 children and teenagers living in the Casa Lar Campo Formoso.

These children, some only a few months old, due to economic and social difficulties in their family, live in institutions, deprived a mother’s and father’s attention and affection. Even these children's most modest dreams, such as having new toys, books and notebooks to draw in; going to the beach or seeing a football match, often become unattainable.

The goal of Casa Lar is to give a mother and a father back to each child, working to return them to their family of origin or to integrate them into a new household, being attentive that the child spends the least amount of time possible without a real family.

The Dream Factory project, from 2006 to the present, has brought a smile to children in orphanages in Ukraine, Colombia, Nepal, Peru, Mongolia and Brazil.

Today, Alessi and AIBI together want to fulfill, a bit like Santa Claus, all the daily desires of the children of Campo Formoso, while pursuing what is the greatest dream of every abandoned child: finally finding a family.

2009 - Breakfast stories

Last 16 September the ‘dream factory’ art gallery in Milan hosted an event that will travel the world.

“Breakfast stories” is a set of cups and saucers decorated by Miriam Mirri with different stories. This new project that Alessi chose to represent 2009 partnership with the International Association ‘Amici dei Bambini’ was presented in the attendance of Matteo Alessi, Director of Trade Marketing and International Development and Marco Griffini, chairman of Ai.Bi. Amici dei Bambini.

About fifty children between 3 and 12 years were invited to take part in a workshop to decorate cups that Miriam Mirri left white for them. The workshop that was carried out under the supervision of Miriam Mirri and pedagogist Marta Stella Bruzzone produced about 50 colourful cups, the result of children’s creativity.

The cups decorated by the children will be displayed together with the three sets designed by Miriam Mirri in the Alessi shopwindows of the Milan store in Via Matteotti 9, for the Universal Children’s Day from 17 to 23 November before being returned to their little owners.

The “Breakfast stories” collection of cups and sauceers by Miriam Mirri are nice and original Christmas gifts that will also help unpriviledged children all over the world.

Ai.Bi. is an International Humanitarian Aid Organisation committed for over twenty years to safeguarding the rights of abandoned minors and give them the right to a family. Alessi and Ai.Bi. have been collaborating in the last three years to fulfill the dreams of many children around the world. The 2009 project is completely devoted to Colombia.

Colombia is the third largest country in Latin America with an overall population of approx. 45 million people. An amazing and rich country with a terrible history characterized by a civil war that has been devastating it for decades.

Alessi to Celebrate Universal Children’s Day November 20, 2008

Alessi, has supported AiBi, the International "Amici dei Bambini" association, since 2006 with  different projects to help the dreams of abandoned children worldwide come true. To honor this day and until November 22, the window of the Alessi Flagship Store in the heart of Milan will showcase two projects designed to support AiBi.

“Alessandro M. – Sun Dream”
In 2008 Alessandro Mendini has provided his famous corkscrew with a delicate sky-blue costume covered in white clouds, ‘Alessandro M. – Sun Dream’. All proceeds from the sale of the corkscrew will be donated to make the dreams of many abandoned children in orphanages in Brazil and Mongolia become true.


“T-Dream”
2007  saw the launch of ‘T-Dreams’, a collection of T-shirts designed by eight famous international authors showing designs that have never seen the light: Riccardo Dalisi, Stefano Giovannoni, Michael Graves, Martí Guixé, Alessandro Mendini, Aldo Rossi, Philippe Starck, Robert Venturi. The dream of a renowned master of design to help realize the dream of an unprivileged child in orhphanages in Colombia, Nepal and Peru. All proceeds from the sale of the T-Dreams will be donated to AiBi as well.  


10% of purchases made at the Milan Flagship Store between  November 20th  and November 22nd will be donated to Amici dei Bambini.  

With Alessi and AiBi your shopping will donate happiness and hope to someone in need!

July 2007, T-Dream Collection

“Sometimes, in the world’s orphanages, children stop dreaming. Faced with the pain of never seeing their dreams come true, children lose the ability to express their desires, and little by little stop pursuing them. But giving up hope is by far the worst thing that can happen to an institutionalised child. For over twenty years, Amici dei Bambini has worked with orphanages around the world to give abandoned children the fundamental right to a family.

With the help of Alessi, in 2006 the association launched its first project at the Bojarka orphanage in the Ukraine: 50 children who gradually saw the dreams they had expressed in a drawing come true.

The following year, thanks to T-DREAM, a collection of T-shirts by eight leading international designers, funds were raised for 3 new projects in Colombia, Nepal and Perù, to take the dream of Alessi and Amici dei Bambini even further afield.

The tangible results achieved in the first two years encouraged us to renew the partnership in 2008, by launching a special product: Sun Dream, the latest arrival in the collection of corkscrews in the collection designed by Alessandro Mendini.

For this project, Mendini chose to cover his Alessandro M in white clouds, the symbol of dreams and representing the sense of freedom that we want to give abandoned children through dreams.

All the proceeds from the sale of the hand-decorated, limited edition corkscrews in the “Alessandro M.” collection will help to realise the dreams of the children living in orphanages in Brazil and Mongolia.

These are two new stages on the global journey which Alessi and Amici dei Bambini embarked on three years ago, as year after year we encounter growing numbers of children who need the desire to dream.

Our thanks go, once again, to the Alessi family and to Alessandro Mendini and the company’s creative directors, customers, employees and collaborators who continue to believe in the “Factory of Dreams” and are still working to make it a reality.

Marco Griffini
President of Amici dei Bambini