How do you welcome young people with severe mental disabilities into your home and live with them for life? What moved Guenda and Anne—two young, vibrant women—to make such a decision, to take on the responsibility of forming a small family with Fabio and Maria in 1981? How, over the decades, did so many others—caregivers and people with disabilities alike—come to live here?
The Chicco community marked its thirtieth anniversary on December 11, 2011, and celebrated it on December 18 with family members and countless friends.
Today the Chicco is a splendid and complex reality: set on lush grounds at Ciampino, just outside Rome, there are three homes—three beautiful villas where seventeen young people now live, along with Magda, the coordinator, paid staff, volunteers from distant countries, and a steady stream of friends and family members who visit and lend a hand. There is a chapel where the Blessed Sacrament is always present; when needed, it opens into the Shalom hall to accommodate larger gatherings. Attached is a day center with four workshops where rehabilitation activities, independence training, and creative work happen—projects with educational value where other young people participate before heading home in the afternoon. There are administrative offices, and a recently built heated pool for summer use.
Did Guenda and Anne ever imagine their small family could grow so large? What drove them to launch an adventure that, looking back at what they accomplished, seems almost impossible?
Guenda and Anne were seeking answers to a deep longing in their hearts. Both came from experience with L'Arche—they knew Jean Vanier—and both felt called to a renewed Church, inspired by the post-Vatican II climate: a Christian life that, returning to its roots, would be lived as Jesus taught, with "the poorest" and in radical simplicity.
In a 1983 interview, Guenda said: "To form a small family with two children, both with disabilities, both among the most vulnerable—young people who had spent their years in institutions—was a shared desire, and we wanted to answer it. We didn't choose Fabio and Maria; they came toward us, giving us the answer our hearts were asking for. We waited for them…through prayer, certainly. We looked for a home for them, asked for help, and finally, in December 1981, we welcomed them, quickly learning how to live together."
This is how I understand these small families today, where young people and caregivers share daily life: their friendships, joys, and struggles are not the product of careful planning—who could claim such capacity and courage?—but rather flow from a deep awareness of longing in the heart, a hunger to give and receive love. And that longing, lived out through sharing life with these "little ones," has found its answer.
At the celebration of thirty years since that first family nucleus, countless people came bearing gifts and smiles without end. Videos were shown: an early interview with Guenda and Anne when only Fabio and Maria lived in the single little house called Il CHICCO; then a film tracing the history of each community member, documenting their arrivals year by year. There were interviews with caregivers working there too—people who clearly continue to find answers to the deepest longings of their own hearts. Aina simply said: "They need me, and I feel I need them." Don Secondo, who served as spiritual director for many years, told me, "This is a place of healing, where you return to what matters." Others said in various ways, "I found myself in my element," and Magda: "I understood this was my place."
The Chicco is truly a place of healing—not only because the young people receive the care they need, but because there is a reciprocal healing and well-being in community life that I have experienced personally since I began working here. I could give many examples.
Today we all struggle with the pace of an ever-faster life: multiplying forms of communication, moving at lightning speed, have not made us better communicators. Quite the opposite. This year I sent Christmas greetings to three hundred or more people by email or text, and by the end I couldn't remember who I'd greeted and who I'd forgotten. Here at the Chicco, you must learn patience and attentiveness to communicate with the young people, to give the right greeting or gift to a friend. Maria, for instance—who would have guessed?—to make her happy, you have to wish for rain. She adores raindrops she can see herself in, and she asks for them by sitting by the window, pointing upward with that look and that voice: "I wish it would rain…"
I think of how much of my life I spent chasing a job that would use my talents, something more stable, better paid. How anxious I grew, always thinking, "I'm just passing through here, I still need to find the right place." I arrive in community and run into Danilo, who has a gift for valuing and affirming people and never misses a chance to live happily in company. Even if I've been here ten minutes, he asks: "Are you staying for lunch?" And when I say yes, he throws his arms up in a victory gesture and shouts: "Yes!!!" How can you not smile and feel you've found exactly where you belong?
And I think of how many times I've said I was stressed and tired, and talked with friends about weekend wellness retreats or massages or the latest thing to shake off exhaustion. Then Silvia comes along and, by sitting in your lap, "forces" you to hold her tight from behind for at least fifteen minutes. You discover that sinking into her softness is the most pleasant and relaxing thing you've felt in ages.
I could give a thousand more examples, and every day brings a new discovery—a fresh fruit that everyone who passes through here finds and carries with them. A sign of a more human life, as the L'Arche charter says. So for thirty years of fruit, there is only one thing to say: thank you, Chicco.
Annick Donelli