One of the problems we face here as in Europe is the tendency to isolate the people with mental disabilities. There is a widespread feeling in the society that they are useless and not worthy to be kept in the normal life of other people. As a result of that, in Chaaria as in Italy, we may observe that our boys are dumped in Cottolengo by the families, and when the place is assured in the centre, all the relatives disappear for good. That is why we try to remain in touch with the households, pushing them to keep faithful to the promises they make when they are to convince us to admit their disabled relative:
“brother, we will always come to visit him and we will not disappear”.
Unfortunately, regularly they get lost thereafter!
Another way by which we try to change this mentality is by welcoming children in the centre to make them used to the mentally handicapped, and to convince them that the disabled are not dangerous. We wish to teach the children that a physically or mentally disadvantaged person is somebody more in need of love and affection, because normally they are abandoned.We had another occasion for doing so even yesterday, when our former curate Fr. Alexander Kiruja came to our centre with more than 100 children (both boys and girls) to pay a visit to our inmates. It was like a feast, enjoyed either by our inmates or by the children of Igoji parish. The activity was part of the program Fr. Kiruja has devised for the Sunday school, and it is actually very good that young children are taught by the church that the mentally disabled are creatures of God like us, and they need to be loved and to love exactly as we do. The group of Igoji has come with 2 big buses and they have given nice gifts to our boys. We really thank God for initiatives like the one of yesterday.
Br. Giuseppe Gaido
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