1. The Story
At Cernusco sul Naviglio, on the edge of Milan, something unprecedented has begun to take shape—an experiment that strikes us, at least, as deeply moving. Standing alone in open countryside, the Cascina Nibai (what does it look like today?, click here ed. note) looks to the visitor like the farmhouse from the film "The Tree of Wooden Clogs." It is, in fact, a classic Lombard cascina, its oldest sections dating to the 1700s.
The smell, the colors, the walls, the old arcades, the flat fields, the sounds—everything evokes a distant past when peasants and landowners lived side by side, moving with the seasons, a simple and cordial life that is now difficult to imagine.
Today, the cascina no longer belongs to old Signor Nibai and his tenant farmers. Now it is home to the Cooperativa Fraternità, where adults and children, young and old, the healthy and the handicapped, live together according to the rhythm of the seasons—but guided by a Christian principle: the sharing of strength, labor, joy, and sorrow.
Who had this idea? How did such an initiative come to be? A group of friends—adults and young people bound by years of shared life in other communities (Nomadelfia, the Collina di Reggio Emilia, the Forteto di Prato)—found themselves wrestling with a question posed in a homily by Cardinal Martini: How can we be Samaritans today? Among them: a father of four (one a adolescent with Down syndrome) who works for Milan's streetcar company; another father who, with his wife and two sons, has taken in a girl with Down syndrome; young people, engaged couples, friends. They asked themselves: How can we use our strength and labor to meet the needs we see around us?
1980. We found ourselves confronted by Cardinal Martini's question in a homily: "How can we be Samaritans today?"
1980. We found ourselves confronted by Cardinal Martini's question in a homily: "How can we be Samaritans today?"Law 180 had forced the closure of Cernusco's psychiatric hospital. Young people were being released with nowhere to go, practically onto the street.
It was 1980. Umberto Sirtori, after about twenty group meetings, argued—not without hesitation—that they simply had to begin; the answers would come in time, and fears would be overcome. A few kilometers from Cernusco, the old Cascina Nibai was for sale. It could be the ideal place to start something for these young men, for his own son. As for himself, he was ready to go work at the farm with whoever would follow him, provided the company where he worked continued to pay his salary. But how to buy the Cascina? The price was 450 million lire. The figure was staggering. The group pressed ahead. They bought it—taking on debt. A friend arranged financing through a bank with favorable terms on interest rather than principal repayment. The "Cooperativa Fraternità" was established. One of the founding members was the diocesan vicar. "From the very beginning," Edoardo, the cooperative's vice president and an educator, tells us, "we wanted to be sustained in this work by the local Church. We knew we were taking on something larger than ourselves. Some sisters, for the same reason, though they didn't formally join, committed themselves to support us through prayer. In difficult moments, we always turn to them, and each month they give us a small sum."
About thirty founders signed the deed on March 2, 1981. Soon others—families, numerous volunteers—joined them. As they worked (at first, they labored during the day and returned home in the evenings), they realized something was missing: those in difficulty without family needed a place to spend their free hours, to sleep at night.
"We hit another crisis," Edoardo continues. "I had recently married; another couple in the group, with two children, felt called to respond. More meetings, more prayer."
How to answer?
Now four families live at the Cascina, along with people they have welcomed. The old tenant apartments have been restored. Each guest finds a family to anchor them to—and a taste of normal life. Umberto gave the initial push, yes, but many others moved with him: some committed fully; others lend a hand when they can. At the thanksgiving celebration held one year into the community's life, 350 people showed up—everyone who had helped. What had begun as the vision of a few had drawn in people of every kind: a construction company that donated labor; an electrician who installed the first wiring for free; a fifteen-year-old from the parish youth group; a group of Alpine soldiers who spent six months of weekends rebuilding the barn, now ultramodern.
Some live there; some live at home and work there by day; some give a few hours here and there; some pray for them; some shop at their market stand.
2. The Structure
The community has two parts:
a) The Cooperativa Fraternità comprises 44 people working on-site in various activities. Twenty of them are people with disabilities (mental, physical, or psychological handicaps, or social difficulties). Among the cooperative's members, some return to their own homes at evening; others live at the Cascina—four families with their children (including two adopted handicapped children), six people without family, five conscientious objectors. Each family has a small apartment on the first floor. Lunch is shared downstairs on the ground floor; dinner is eaten in family or in common, as people choose.
b) The Associazione Fraternità includes all who participate in the community's life—whether through occasional work, prayer, festivals, or simply by sharing the ideal and supporting the cause.
3. The Work
Work includes:
a) Agricultural activities, currently:
— Raising roughly 2,000 chickens, geese, guinea fowl, rabbits; pig farming with slaughter and meat processing; cattle fattening;
— Field work and cultivation.
Since farm work was not suited to everyone, they later started:
b) An assembly workshop and an artisanal electronics laboratory (transformers for toys, amplifiers, handling both assembly and design);
c) A shop and café selling cooperative products—a gathering place for people from nearby towns buying farm goods, and a way to support the community;
d) Renovation work on the Cascina for its various new functions. This was their first activity and continues today with strong volunteer support.
4. Funding
Income comes from:
- Sales of goods produced;
- Monthly financial contributions from community members;
- Various donations;
- Daily fees for disabled residents (20,000 lire per day for those who work; 25,000 for those who work and live at the Cascina).
5. Expenses
Expenses include:
- Repaying the debt and interest;
- Materials for renovation and the workshops;
- Salaries (everyone receives a wage according to need).
6. Community Life
"We don't want anyone to think," Edoardo says firmly, "that we're some kind of island paradise. We have tension here, like anywhere. We have problems, difficulties of every kind." The ideal of life they have chosen has taken shape gradually—as they have lived it, worked it, sweat through it; as life has presented both easy and hard moments, sometimes demanding things of them.
What they believe in deeply can be put this way:
To birth and circulate as widely as possible a "new culture," a new way of thinking: "There are people around us, near every one of us, who face difficulties: physical, intellectual, loneliness, abandonment, poverty.
No one is a burden to be disposed of. Each of us must learn to take up our brother's care, engaging with him as best we can.
No one is a burden to be disposed of. Each of us must learn to take up our brother's care, engaging with him as best we can.It falls to each of us to find how to respond—alone or together—so that those who struggle find someone who enters into relationship with them, and that this relationship lasts. After all," Edoardo goes on, "if we are here, it is not for the Cascina Nibai, but to follow and imitate what Jesus Christ did."
This is why they do not want to become an institution where you drop off an inconvenient problem and walk away pleased to have found the best solution. No. They insist, at all costs, that no one ever think of anyone as a burden to be disposed of. They want everyone—parents, friends, volunteers—to take responsibility for the brother or sister who troubles them, to engage with them;
To live this ideal, the first guest of the Cascina was Jesus. The Chapel is the center, where everyone prays together (all are invited—Lauds and Vespers each morning and evening). There is a community Mass every Wednesday.
Once a month there is a day of spiritual retreat, or a pilgrimage: usually a 25-kilometer night walk. Everyone takes part, young and old. They leave at 10:30 p.m., arrive at the Madonna del Bosco Sanctuary for Mass, celebrate together, eat, then walk back home to sleep. "It is these moments of shared prayer and life review," Edoardo says, "that give us the strength to go on and keep us united despite our enormous differences."
-Editorial Board, 1985