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SCANDIANO

Before arriving to Scandiano, the location of my third international voluntary workcamp, I was very excited. I have never been working with disabled people earlier. I have spent a few months together in the same office with a physically disabled colleague, and from time-to-time in my life I got in touch with mentally disabled people as well, but that’s all. I was always a bit afraid of communicating with them, I didn’t know how to start talking, about what topic, if I can mention their disabilities or if I have to avoid the topic. I was even afraid to touch them in some cases…definitely I’m not the doctor-type of person.

But that was also something that kept disturbing me, as I know it is part of life, part of humanity. Normally I’m an emphatic person, and I really wanted to come over my embarrassment and confusion regarding this topic. I mean it’s so much natural! Kindness, goodwill and patience come from my heart towards each person around me, if I would like to say some nice words or hug someone, there should not be barriers like this keeping me back from that.

When in YAP Italy instead of going to Manservisi Castle to work on environmental reconstruction I became aware of being chosen for Scandiano as a campleader, I headed this experience with ambivalent feelings as shown above.

Of course in the first hours and few days me, and the other volunteers were handled by the colleagues of the centre and especially by the disabled guys as something special, unknown…, such as a Christmas tree. We received immediately after arrival some warm welcoming words, hundred times the same questions (even from the same persons J), from time-to-time a hug or a holding hand. We were standing in the middle of the interests.  The openness with which they welcomed us was uplifting. Although some others were not too interested in us, following their everyday activities, their habits, some of them were maybe too shy even to look at us. J

 

It’s heartwarming to remember how great change proceeded in the behavior of those latter ones at the end of the project at the moments of farewell. I remember Guido, who sits always alone in the entrance hall, spacing out, maybe thinking about the big questions of life. When I call his name, he seems to be considering even to look at me or not, to answer my really easy question of “Come va?” or not. But at the end he always looks up at me, strictly from under the shield of his baseball hat, sends me a smile and says “Va bene.” And then he asks after a dozen times “Come ti chiami?”, and I say “Mi chiama Dora”. But this conversation changed after one week, so that he would add: “Dora, ti voglio bene!” with a serious expression on his face. And then my favorite game with him was just to stare at him and send him a grimace when he looks at me, and receiving with satisfaction his huge smile and joy all over his face as he hides back behind his shield or hands or just his eyelashes. And after 5-10 minutes of playing receiving again the greatest compliment ever… “Dora, ti voglio bene!”

Being open, curious and a good observer was extremely important while we saw how instinctively but professionally operators handled our guys. Trying to find the best way to communicate, to ask, to order, to discipline, to entertain, to improve skills was also a great challenge, but we became braver with every day regarding our small but important initiatives in all of these aspects of life.

During our workcamp we had to be soooo open and creative with Diana, Han-Young and Miriam to find out some interesting games, activities, songs, dances which can be adapted to the guys’ different levels of interests and needs. Our work included basically to accompany them during their everyday activities in and outside of the centre, such as workshops with paper or wood, general shopping, going to swimming pool or going to the shop, where some of them were working. But in the meantime, in their free hours we were encouraged to initiate some new activities with them, such as drawing, making bracelets, etc. After a while I realized, that I could use mostly all of the games and songs which I learned in my first project, while working with children in Naples. Surprisingly - at least for me - everybody knew also in Scandiano the famous Italian song, which starts with... “Testa, spalla, baby one-two-three…” J

 

Once we were standing with Guido in the supermarket waiting for the others to come, and I just wanted to activate his body, which I imagined to be too relaxed and weakened after all those standing and sitting in the same position, never having an energetic, sudden movement. So I started to play this Hungarian children game on his palm, “Kerekecske, gombocska, ideszalad a nyulacska!”,  starting slooooooowly to draw circles onto his palm with my fingertip, as the Hungarian say goes like “small circle, small button”, and then to run up on his arm with my fingers until his neck, saying “here runs the small rabbit”. …And then I was waiting excitedly for his widening smile to expand on his face…which arrived each and every time J When, after two weeks he said goodbye to me, hugging me strongly, telling me the inevitable “Ti voglio bene!” he stretched his palm towards me and said “do you remember that thing in the supermarket?”, making me playing “that thing” one last time and remembering him with love in the future.

And he is only one person of all… Even if I could not have with everyone a nice, deep relationship, which would be impossible in two weeks, and in some cases maybe not even a lifetime is enough, some of them touched my heart obviously and permanently. And I can assure myself and all my fellow-volunteers that we have left something valuable and permanent in Scandiano, in the heart of all the people who we got in touch with, even if just for half an hour. I was happy to realize the changes in my attitude towards disabled people during these two weeks, concerning all those uncertainty about the “proper” behavior. Not being disturbed by touching, hugging, looking at, but trying to find out the way to communicate, to understand their abilities and habits, to make them smile, to understand their thoughts and to laugh together.

I recognize and honor the work of the operators in the centre, who dedicate their lives for making this world a better place for all our fellow-being, who are not better, not worse, just different from us. I suggest that each and every volunteer should take once the challenge and choose a workcamp, where they can get closer to disabled people, to themselves and to those people who can be good examples of full-hearted workers. It is good to bear in mind their enthusiasm, while in our own life we choose a profession, what we can stand for with all our heart. In my opinion to be able to handle people with different abilities, capacities, skills is a basic requirement in our daily life, as we are different from our friends, our relatives, our fellows, colleagues or neighbors.

Concerning our leisure time during the workcamp I have to tell, that it was an unexpected and amazing fun, what we had during the weekdays and the weekends. The centre is quite isolated, it is located a few kilometers away from the village of Scandiano, therefore I was expecting table games, chatting and big walks with the girls every night. Instead of those, or let’s say along with them, we had a nice pub just 2 minutes away from our accommodation, with great German beer and delicious lemon sorbet. The perfect view over the countryside, the underlying equestrian center and the good music provided a great location for playing UNO after some hard days. 

Moreover we experienced an outstanding hospitality from our local colleagues, who accompanied us all around the neighboring small towns, so that we could participate in local festivals and sport events. The possibility to get to know the region of Emilia Romagna, to have a taste of the traditional gastronomy, to visit some beautiful cities, such as Parma and Bologna made our experience complete.