I was born in Bra, a little town in Piedmont, north of Italy. Since I was a child I loved sports, each kind of sport. I liked to run, play football, basketball, and swim. One day, at school, a hockey coach came to teach us hockey. That day I think my life took one direction: I fell in love with hockey. At the age of 9 years old I held the hockey stick for the first time and since that time I haven’t left it.

For 15 years I played hockey while I was studying, from primary school till university. I played at local and at international level, I was also part of the Italian national side for ten years, starting from the junior team till the senior team. I always tried to combine hockey with study, making an effort to combine hard training with books and exams. I managed to graduate at the University with a Master Degree in Criminal Psychology. After graduation, I decided to leave Italy and to quit hockey to dedicate a period of my life to something different. I applied for a year of Civil Service, volunteering for one year in Tanzania for the Italian ngo COPE.

In 2011, I left for Tanzania, my life took another direction. I lived one year in a small village in the South of Tanzania far away from the big cities, I spent my experience teaching to small children and working with local teachers to improve teaching methodology for small children. The time spent there helped me to see things in another way, I grew a lot. At the end of my year, one week before going back to Italy, I went to Dar es Salaam, the main city in Tanzania. By chance I met hockey here in Tanzania. I was on the bus and suddenly I saw on one pitch nearby the street that there were people playing hockey! I jumped off the bus and went to meet them. After one year I was again in Tanzania, working again with COPE in Dar es Salaam as head office coordinator and I started to help revive the women hockey team by coaching the team and finding the money to support it.