There are some lives which leave me wonderstruck. I'm filled with admiration and transported to remote parts of the world where I can see, feel and hear the intensity of an encounter with “the lowliest” of the world.

I think that every one of us has had an experience which has changed our lives. Sometimes it can be a glimmer of light that lights up the dark depths of desperation. Our mind and our senses which had blocked them out until a moment before, suddenly see where there's pain and they go there. Or by chance they find themselves there already and that's where they stay. Some people make an inner change that marks a turning point in the way they live their lives. They begin to take action and their whole life changes through the great endeavour of giving their all. They have realised that there is no difference between calamities that are far away and those close to home. There's a shadowy line dividing us from the distress of human suffering and it's comforting as it makes that suffering appear a long way from where we are. It's a question of perspectives and it affects our emotions. We forget that we all live in the same world and we share a destiny. “Nietzsche suggests that rather than loving our neighbours, who are too similar to ourselves, we should love those who are far away; in particular those who are distant in time, the future generations.” Those who devote their lives to the lives of other people come to a crossroads and choose the route which excludes no-one. Their eyes and their hands lift the veil which hides so many things. They see the good in others or they see an equal who needs to be given back their dignity.

I am lucky enough to have a number of friends – and also my own daughter, Marcella – who, during their lives have made a drastic change of course towards the regions of the soul. Their new direction leads to a never-ending series of questions that they attempt to reply to with the disarming force of passion. Their actions are a constant appeal to all the signals, tracks and voices that have been forgotten, neglected, abandoned or wounded. One of these people is Gabriella Fresa who is with me here in the studio. She decided one day to go with her daughter Lucia to India. ...

Gabriella
In October 1990 I found myself flying towards Mumbay to accompany my daughter, Lucia, on a journey to India because I considered such travelling to be dangerous for her. I didn’t have any real knowledge about that country, except for the stories told by my friends and from my few readings. So, during the flight, I started to read The city of joy, by Dominique Lapierre, whom I later met and invited to Ravenna, my home town, to hold a conference about his experiences. In his book, I found a reality that was for me completely unthinkable as to the desperation, extreme poverty and diseases which affected it. On the road from the airport to the Vimala Dermatological Center (where I thought I would stop only for one night, just to fully define the itinerary of the trip) I was deeply shocked when I saw many people, entire families, sleeping on the road: it was their home. And so I started to live into the reality I had just read in the book. Many people were sleeping along the guard-rail because, as the drivers later told me, they were afraid of rats. The rats would indeed not reach the road because they were afraid of the noise provoked by car traffic. Between Lucia and me, deep silence. Once we arrived at the hospital, around 2 o’clock am, we went up to our bedroom, I put my head between my hands and said: “What have I done to come here?”. Lucia was sleeping, I wasn’t.

The next day we visited the hospital, led by an extraordinary woman, a missionary in India for 44 years, Sister Bertilla Capra, from the Italian city of Bergamo, whom I had encountered thanks to a relationship created through a distance -, or love-, adoption of children. The vision of patients affected by leprosy was a devastating recoil. For 15 days I did not speak. If my outer expression was silence, there was turmoil in my mind and in my heart. After a short trip to Rajahstan, I went back to the hospital in order to stay there and understand what had happened inside me. And I understood that I had to give an answer to that recoil. I needed to act, to do something, simply that. The Vimala Hospital, devastating at first sight because of the leprosy and its terrible effects on human beings, actually caused immediately, like a miracle, a sudden turn in my life. I needed to find a reply to the question: what to do and how to do it?

First of all, through the story of a child called Ganesh, a story that was passed-on from mouth to mouth, who was found by my dear friend Annabella in a village of people affected by leprosy, a chain of solidarity has been created and thus, today, the children treated by leprosy, and whose lives have been saved, have become one thousand. The distance adoption project has a very precise meaning: to ensure food, health and education to children somehow affected by leprosy. All the “adopted” children are either directly affected by the disease or they are children of affected parents, although the Indian government has declared in 2000 that leprosy had been defeated. The Sisters of Immacolata, like Sr. Bertilla, sometimes make surveys in the marginalised districts, in schools, in kinder-gardens and they still find many cases of leprosy, which is a disease that can be cured without leaving those horrible signs, but only if it is diagnosed at an early stage. Every year, in October, I go back to India and the main job for my friends Annabella, Mimmi and me is to meet our children, to congratulate with them if they received good grades at school and to support them if they have had difficulties. Of course, there is often the necessity to support them also with regard to their health conditions and to family problems.

It is a big proud for us, Friends of the Missionaries of the Immacolata (“onlus” association) to tell the story of three little sisters, Shaila, Sandhya and Vidia. They were received and accommodated in the side of the hospital prepared to host daughters of leprosy parents or leprosy patients themselves, in order to treat them and send them to the school of English and Marathi. For these little girls there seemed to be no future. Today, Shaila is a Political Science graduate and has an excellent job. Sandhya is an Economics and Commerce graduate and is attending a Master course. Vidia is attending the second year of Engineering. In this case, we have supported their talents, helped by groups of people living in different Italian cities. I could present many other cases where the common element is access to education. Mandela wrote that education is the most powerful weapon to destroy poverty and misery.

The love-adoption support group doesn’t make a difference between girls and boys, but a special attention goes to those children that would have got married at the age of 11 or 12 years, should they have not had the opportunity to enter the Vimala boarding college. Let me tell you the story of a father who wanted his daughter to quit her studies at the age of 13 so that she could get married. I kneeled down before this man, I was desperate, and guaranteed that little Ambika would not have been an economic burden for him until the end of her studies. Today Ambika is 20 years old, she is a nurse, she is independent and doesn’t feel like getting married at all. All our girls, once they have completed their studies, receive a dowry so that they can be accepted and respected by the husband’s family. We try to fully respect people’s culture and traditions in our work. In our experience, we have noticed that the relationship between men and women has changed and we have also been invited to so called “love-marriages”. This is a very important step.

You see, Mariella, when I’ve arrived for the first time at the Vimala Dermatological Center in Versova, in the surroundings of Mumbay, my first reaction was of extreme hardship. Today, when I leave the hospital to go back to Italy, the hugs are real, affectionate and very emotional. They are the last on this earth and we are allowed to sit with them for the meal. Inside the hospital, we have created a tailor’s shop, led by Abid - under the supervision of Sr. Bertilla and Liù, one of my greatest volunteers in Ravenna. Abid makes “kurta’s”, that are Indian traditional clothes that are very fashionable in the West. Abid is a former leprosy patient with incredible tailoring skills. Around him, many other persons work full time to produce what the Vimala visitors’ ask for and other clothes that are sold through our solidarity markets. However, a great project would be to free the tailoring project from the “protective wings” of Sr. Bertilla and Friends, in order to to make it become an independent firm, managed by them with full autonomy. Mother Teresa, whom I had the honour and happiness to meet in 1997, used to say “Give them the fishing rod, but not the fishes”. My life goes on with upsetting differences, between crises and big satisfactions. I was asked this question: “Which is your drive: philanthropy, charity, pity?”. I can’t find myself in any of these words, it is only solidarity. We have grown up now and I hope to pass the baton, but I know that I won’t be able to do it.

The great women of today and yesterday share the common characteristic of humility. Hildegard of Bingen, the wise woman of the Middle Ages, often said that she was lacking in culture. Gabriella's story is a physical and mental journey from one place to another, and it's full of humility. She begins by talking about herself, her daughter Lucia and a distance adoption. Then Annabella, Sister Bertilla and the Vimala hospital come into the picture. From a family context the story gradually takes on epic proportions. The “I” becomes a “we” and the one child is multiplied to a thousand children. This shift from one to a thousand is highlighted by silence. At this point I would like to quote Sister Juana Inés de la Cruz's Reply to Sister Philotea: “...He does not say what he saw, but he says that he cannot say it. In this way, of those things that cannot be spoken, so that it may be known that silence is kept not for lack of things to say, but because the many things there are to say cannot be contained in mere words...”

She does not disclose, but readers can understand that she has created, and continues to build, an empire of connections that is ever more vast and engaging. I wonder which coral-red peaks she has scaled in the sphere of what she defines as solidarity but I see as an alluring beacon that contrasts with the opaque and immobile background of our lives.

Translation by Lucia Fresa, images by Gabriella Fresa.

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