Our Cooperativa La Solidarietà was founded eleven years ago by disabled people and parents of children with handicaps. Our first venture was managing the parking lot at the Euromercato. The income allowed us to help disabled people pay for prosthetics, wheelchairs, surgeries, school books, and to support various charitable initiatives.
Over time, we felt a growing need to do something more tangible—to actually place disabled people in jobs. On February 6, 1989, our workshop for the disabled became real. Since then, one achievement has followed another, and today Cooperativa La Solidarietà stands as a solid social enterprise that the community of Carugate can be proud of.
We currently employ ten young disabled people, supported by three full-time staff and one conscientious objector doing civil service. A psychologist's steady presence ensures the delicate balance our structure requires.
Our work is mainly assembly—simple tasks accessible to everyone. For the past year, we've also maintained and managed public green spaces. And we still run the parking lot at the Euromercato, which provides steady income.
We offer many support activities: music therapy, tutoring, swimming, residential and mountain experiences, performances, and more.
None of this would be possible without volunteers—people who understand the importance of what they do. Without them, the Cooperativa could not exist.
Why did we start the Cooperativa?
Simply because we believe that others live alongside us—people who have the right to walk with us but struggle because modern society has pushed them to the margins. That's what the Cooperativa La Solidarietà does: help these young people earn their place in a society that has rejected or abandoned them.
The deafening noise of modern life, the pressure to keep pace, the drive to succeed at any cost—these can make us blind to the marginalized person next to us, and they push that person further to the edges. We need to stop. Look around. Listen. Watch carefully. Then we would discover a new world, more human, where no one lives alone. We would learn that by helping others, we help ourselves; that we receive only by giving. The Cooperativa offers no money and no glory. It enriches us from within. It shows us what really matters in life. Solidarity alone may not overcome handicap, but it certainly improves the conditions of life. Living beside the weak makes the weak less weak and the strong less strong.
This is the reality of the dream we imagined eleven years ago: Cooperativa La Solidarietà.
- Ambrogio, 1993 - Carugate