My work in social service marks a deep turning point in my life—an encounter with something essential that touches nearly every part of who I am.
Right now, I'm doing my civil service at CASA BLU, a group home for people with severe disabilities run by the Spes Contra Spem cooperative. Years ago, I kept asking myself questions about my place in relation to others. I was curious about people—what moved them from within. I read psychology books, listened to radio programs, explored the subject however I could. But even as a child, I felt a pull to help, to be present to others, to do something for people in need. So I volunteered at the Caritas soup kitchen, then with various social organizations. I wanted to make the world a better place.
By my twentieth year, I enrolled in psychology. As I studied, I grew convinced that real learning happens only when you're in the room with people who need help. At the same time, I faced economic pressure and needed to earn. I applied for civil service at Casa Blu.
This choice was above all an act of commitment to relationship. I didn't fully understand it then, but I wanted to discover what I might become through contact with this reality—to care for others while putting myself on the line.
Every day, when I encounter one of the people I assist, the relationship itself asks questions of me. Their resistance, their gaze searching for mine, their struggles, their quiet strengths—these make me examine myself. How do I be with others? How do I balance my own needs and desires with theirs? Where do my boundaries lie in relation to another person? Where do I end and they begin?
What I do each day at Casa Blu is both practical and relational. I help the residents with tasks their disabilities prevent them from doing alone. And I work with them on a shared educational plan aimed at building their responsible independence. Contact with them—often wordless—is slowly changing how I relate to life itself. It makes me question what matters. It teaches me to listen more deeply to what is truly alive in me and around me.
When I help one of the young men, I see who he really is. In the look he gives me, searching for welcome, I experience welcome myself—a recognition that fills me, that opens me to something beyond the needs and wants of the moment. Those moments feel like genuine life.
After nearly three months of this experience, I can say I now look at strangers on the street differently. I notice their needs more.
I believe an experience like this is a true "lever for life." Everyone could benefit from it—to wake up to others and to question what really matters. People with disabilities are people like us. Just as we are different from one another, so are they. Our society too often treats disability as a burden, overlooking the gifts it carries or ignoring the simple fact that disability and difference exist in all of us. Maybe we just need to accept ourselves—all of ourselves—to let those gifts surface.
I've also grown rich through my work with other staff members. Talking with them about how we respond to the young people has shown me that everyone has weaknesses. We can open ourselves to each other, confide, help, and grow stronger together. I've discovered that people I initially dismissed as lacking gifts are often carriers of real resources. In wrestling together with different ways to meet people's needs, I've begun to see the extraordinary variety of approaches there are, the many ways of showing up for another person.
The truth is simple: every person is rich.
Emanuele Sapore, 2011
