A Steiner-Inspired Association in Rome
Oliviero's mother, featured in our recent article "Perceval," has asked us to publish this description of an initiative in which she participates with a group of educators and parents.
Many people have no idea what happens to a handicapped teenager once compulsory schooling ends and real life begins.
Even after experiencing inclusion in mainstream schools, young people with disabilities face a fundamental question: how can they continue to grow and develop, with meaningful prospects ahead?
In recent years, a group of disabled students at the Waldorf School in Rome discovered something different through Rudolf Steiner's curative pedagogy. They completed their obligatory schooling grounded in these principles. The results were striking—not just in their academic progress, but in their human growth. Their parents and teachers saw it clearly. And so they asked themselves: why should this stop here?
That question gave birth to the Loïc Francis-Lee Association, dedicated to Steiner-based curative pedagogy and socio-therapeutic practice. Its mission is simple: to allow adolescents with disabilities to continue their human and vocational formation according to anthroposophic educational and therapeutic principles.
This autumn, near Capena outside Rome, Casa Loïc will open—a working house and workshop where young people can gather during the day and engage in both craft work and cultural learning. The primary craft will be wool: washing and dyeing with plant colors, hand-spinning, weaving. Students will also grow and harvest plants for dyes, work the land using biodynamic methods, and share in the daily life of the community—preparing meals, maintaining the house. Cultural and artistic instruction will run alongside these activities, integral to both education and healing. These classes will welcome not only disabled young people, but any interested students.
The need is urgent. Across Europe, Steiner-based centers have operated for decades, earning recognition and public funding from their governments. Italy has none. Here, everything depends on private initiative and private resources. This association needs the active support of a growing circle of people—not just financially, but in spirit and labor—if it is to take root and flourish.
The Loïc Francis-Lee Association
I Hope Not to Lose My Way
I gave the questionnaire from Ombre e Luci to our diocesan Caritas office—a tool for systematic outreach across the diocese.
There are many prejudices about disabled people, even within the Church itself. I often have the sense that the effort many volunteer organizations put forward is less a genuine movement of solidarity than an attempt by individuals to silence their own conscience.
It troubles me, this failure to pursue justice as the first true step toward charity. Instead we settle for gestures that change nothing in society.
Few people understand that when a family includes a disabled member, intervention must embrace the whole family—not just the disabled person. That a handicapped person is not a patient to be cured for life; they want to play with others, be with others, work with others.
Fighting prejudice is a long journey. It demands culture, time, patience, perseverance, and above all faith.
I hope and pray I don't lose my way, knowing that on our territory, no one else is walking this path.
I have read Ombre e Luci carefully, and I find it truly valuable. It offers practical guidance to families, and indirectly, it can clear away so many false ideas. I am committed, from now on, to spreading the magazine beyond Church circles alone. The seed needs to be sown not only among those who say they believe, but also among those who think they don't. I've attached a short article I wrote two years ago for our diocesan weekly. It shares the spirit of your magazine.
I'm also enclosing a list of families with disabled members who I think would welcome receiving Ombre e Luci.
Giancarlo Pertici
The Day of Luca's Confirmation
I'm Marcella, from the Community of Mary, Mother of the Church in Milan. I want to share what it was like to work with Luca and his family. Luca is part of our community, and his parents wanted him to receive the Sacrament of Confirmation.
We discussed it in our group, and I was asked to prepare him for the sacrament.
So I began meeting with him regularly, and I realized that Luca understood: when I came to pick him up, it wasn't for a walk or playtime, but for catechesis. I watched him color the enlarged pictures in Jean Vanier's album. I learned his rhythms, his pace. We kept going all the way through.
On the day of his confirmation, Luca was calm and peaceful throughout the ceremony. The other young people being confirmed that day embraced this moment with him, with real affection.
His parents were deeply moved and happy. Finally, their son had been able to receive the gift of a sacrament. The Holy Spirit came not just to Luca, but to his whole family, gathered close around him in celebration.
For me, it was a profound joy. The experience enriched me in ways I'm still discovering.
Marcella
A Magazine Worth Reading
Thank you for your letter introducing Ombre e Luci. I'm eager to receive some copies. I've browsed the magazine before, thanks to a friend, and I found it compelling then. I'm drawn to disability issues now because I'm studying to become a learning support teacher in elementary schools and because I work with a parish group dedicated to friendship with disabled people.
Thank you for making a sensible, useful magazine available to readers like me.
Anna Borgio (Milan)