Live with mentally handicapped people and discover their gifts
The Community "Il Chicco" was born in 1981, when Guenda and Anne started to live together with two children, Fabio and Maria, in a small house in Ciampino, in the vicinity of Rome.The Community has grown, and today includes three houses (foyers); the Chicco (the grain), the "Vigna" (the vineyard) and the "Ulivo" (the olive tree). In the three houses live Fabio and Maria, adults today, together with other 18 adults with mental disabilities, and assistants and volunteers from different countries.
The workshop il Germoglio (the sprout) is located close to the houses. Many different activites are carried out at il Germoglio: yoga, judo, physical therapy, pottery, gardening, nursery, sensorial stimulation, swimming pool, musical therapy, etc.
Il Chicco has been part of l'Arche since 1983.
L'Arche seeks to reveal the particular gifts of people with a mental handicap who belong at the very heart of their communities and who call others to share their lives. L'Arche knows that it cannot welcome everyone who has a mental handicap. It seeks to offer not a solution but a sign, a sign that a society, to be truly human, must be founded on welcome and respect for the weak and the downtrodden. In a divided world, L'Arche wants to be a sign of hope. Its communities, founded on covenant relationships between people of differing intellectual capacity, social origin, religion and culture, seek to be signs of unity, faithfulness and reconciliation. People with a mental handicap often possess qualities of welcome, wonder, spontaneity, and directness. They are able to touch hearts and to call others to unity through their simplicity and vulnerability. Weakness and vulnerability in a person, far from being an obstacle to union with God, can foster it. It is often through weakness, recognized and accepted, that the liberating love of God is revealed.
Il Chicco is located in a green area in Ciampino, in Via Ancona 1. Economic and administrative management of the Community is guaranteed by the Associazione Arca-Comunitā Il Chicco, ONLUS.
Chicco