Community of Sant'Egidio - solidarity - mentally disabled: friends without limits

At the beginning of the 70�s among the many children with learning disabilities who attended the people�s school of the Community of Sant�Egidio in the outskirts of Rome, several were affected with a mental handicap and had often ended by dropping out of school. They found a welcome and friendship in the people�s school.

In the streets around the monastery of Sant� Egidio in Trastevere at that time there lived numerous adults with mental disabilities, people who were often entirely alone. Rome

Rome Without friends or relations, abandoned to themselves, they spent their days at home or wandering aimlessly around the streets. Sant� Egidio filled with young students and so it seemed natural to turn the church and the monastery into a meeting place for the disabled, a place where they could finally find friendship and understanding. Since then to befriend people who are in difficulty owing to a mental handicap has been the rule in all the Communities of Sant� Egidio the world over.