Why launch another magazine? There are already too many!
We heard that objection when we were planning to publish Ombre e Luci. We hesitated. We wondered if it was worth the effort.
Two years later, our subscriptions keep growing. They come from every corner of Italy—from small villages and from cities. That encourages us to keep working toward the goals we set out to achieve. It's worth restating them.
Ombre e Luci aims to
- Be a resource for parents with a disabled child—not so much on the medical or rehabilitation side (other magazines serve that better) but on the educational, psychological, and spiritual side.
- Inform people who don't yet understand what disability is, so they can better grasp the experience of those who live with it, welcome them, and love them more fully.
- Build community around families—so often isolated and withdrawn in their grief—by gathering people willing to share joy and sorrow, success and struggle, and to see with fresh eyes someone whom society wrongly reduces to "a tragedy." Together, parents and friends can discover and love the person beyond the disability.
- Support the inclusion and integration of disabled people in society and in the church.
We call on all of you, our readers, to join us in this work. We thank those who have renewed their subscriptions, and we invite all of you to collaborate with us. Together we can become a family—a place where belonging heals the heart.
— Mariangela Bertolini, 1985