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It has become a tradition in Bologna that each year on International Women’s Day (8th March) a special award is presented to a woman who has shown herself to be outstanding in the difficult field of the transport of goods and people.

There were numerous online nominations but only one woman could win the rare prize of a Sabo shock absorber painted pink. The choice was a difficult one for the jury which was made up of thirteen women, all employees of the Roberto Nuti Spa Group, a company with a high ratio of female staff and the main sponsor of the initiative.

The much sought-after Sabo Rosa prize, a collector’s item with only one being made each year, was presented to Agata De Rosa, a driver and a mother, who has driven her lorry for the past ten years on the roads of Italy and the rest of Europe. The award-winner, originally from Naples, lives in Dalmine near Bergamo in northern Italy. Together with her husband she does this tough job with a passion inherited from her father to whom she has dedicated the decorations on her Scania.

The prize was presented by Elisabetta Nuti, the financial manager at Roberto Nuti Spa, who gave the following reasons for the choice: “Mrs De Rosa has shown how a sense of duty is fundamental to those who work in the tough field of lorry driving. Even more so for a woman, who is also a mother. Moreover, Agata de Rosa’s story tells of the recognition she has for the role of her father, an excellent example of the true value of the thousands of small enterprises in Italy which pass from one generation to the next with the continuity of a great passion.”

“I dedicated my adolescence to lorries,” says Agata De Rosa who works for Der Trans in Bergamo, “and I grew up among the kings of the road together with a lorry driving father. I’m thirty-two now and I’ve been driving for the past fourteen; I obtained my lorry driver’s licence at twenty-one. I started by driving routes within Italy, even transporting explosives for the army. My father died when I was twenty-three and I carried on alone until I met my husband with whom I learnt to drive in the rest of Europe. He’s a lorry driver too and so now we’re a family that lives for lorries, we love and continue to believe in this lifestyle which is more than a profession: it’s a choice, a vocation. So much so that I continued to drive alone to Belgium and Holland when I was five months pregnant. This lifestyle involves numerous hardships and sacrifices but it’s something you can’t live without. I’m delighted to have won the Sabo Rosa and I’d like to dedicate it to my father, Giovanni De Rosa.”

Agata De Rosa arrived at the prize-giving with her husband Simone Radaelli and son Giovanni (who has the same name as his grandfather) at the wheel of her Scania R500: “mummy’s lorry” as her little boy calls it, causing a smile from his dad, who prefers to drive a Volvo.

The Sabo Rosa prize is a symbol to reward a commitment and passion which remain constant despite the significant difficulties in the field of transport in Italy. “With the exception of a few rare virtuous cases,” says Agata De Rosa, “the large transport companies today look for work done cheaply and for this reason they are more and more frequently employing workers from other countries where, thanks to less strict labour laws, they are able to charge lower rates but without being able to guarantee either a professional job, or the respect and dignity of the worker, unlike Italy’s quality-driven small enterprises.”

M.C.