Giovanna's voluntary service is still going on. See more of her experience!
"And then there are them: the disabled children of the Caritas Blagovestenie center, and the smile of Viara, the manager, and the colleagues, all of them. If I had any doubts about non-verbal communication, it was completely overcome. I was always amazed at the ability to interact with many of them: "How do they understand me if only three words of Bulgarian? And how can I understand their needs if in addition to the linguistic difference there is the presumed one between normality and abnormality? ". Nothing more astonishing, nothing more "normal". Their faces and their expressions will come with me, in my future projects.
It is not easy, we must admit it. Often the days are hard, the long weeks, the results are not very evident. These are activities advised against people with a closed mind and arid emotional intelligence. To those who are afraid of others as "others", to those who think of watertight compartments. Every action, every look of these guys can put you deeply into question, blow up all the frames and schemas on "normalization". Thanks to them you begin to reflect more on what is expected of you, on your reasons for responding in an "adequate" way, on your will to do it, on your real needs and on what the "system" ask you. Why should I repress the curiosity and energy of my inner "child"? Why should I not bare my needs and my raw emotions like disabled children do, who in spite of everything, do nothing but feel radically human emotions? And why should I not have that curiosity and that cultural yearning, desire for change and hope, to the end, like the ladies of the elderly center?"
