Ghana:  Italian   expats  on the line to  support  Don Guanella Homes

Accra - A group of Italian expats, leaded by the Italian ambassador's wife, are supporting the Adidome Good Samaritan Home in the Volta Region. About 50 mentally and physically disabled kids and adults are under the loving care of volunteers and religious priests of the Don Guanella Servants of Charity. This Home was established in 2011 for the rehabilitation and sustainment of people with intellectual impairments.
With cars filled with assorted goods, from rice bags to computers, this Italian bunch occasionally visits the house. Located 140 km away from Accra, just across the Volta river, they help Brother Francis, the director of the Home, in the fulfillment of the spiritual and basic needs of his hosts. Together they give them the chance to improve their skills or recover as much as possible before being sent back home to their families.
Two Italian volunteers, Daniela Manniti (24) and Federica Pala (26), are just arrived in Ghana to spend their one year Civil Service in the Don Guanella shelter. They are also helping these underprivileged children to regain their dignity as human beings. Both the Italian girls have the right skills to be of valuable help in the house. Daniela is a neuropathic and psychic motility therapist of evolutionary age and Federica is a social assistant. "We promise - they said in unison - we had a welcome from these guys we would never forget, ever!". On the day of their arrival in Adidome, the 50 hosts and the local volunteers, the Servant of Charity priests and some local farmers were all there singing and dancing and playing their drums in their honor, the two volunteers told us. 
For their October visit to the Home the Italian friends of Don Guanella shelters arrived together with a pick-up of the Barbisotti and Sons General Building and Civil Engineering, an Italian company in the building sector who has been in Ghana for a good 50 years.
The Barbisotti Company pick up was filled with building materials, a company donation, for the construction of at least a dozen washrooms. Along with the first blue prints of a project designed to build a side annex to the central house, to become the female section of the Good Samaritan Home. This group of people is also organizing a charity ball and a fund raising to cover the expenses for a minibus or a van that can contain a good number of hosts to be able to travel from the hostel to their families in the villages, as well as to join the activities of the other two Don Guanella Home in the same region. Known as the Saint Agnes Vocational Training Center, an educational institution established in 1974 at Abor-Weme and the Don Guanella Family House, a center established in 2009 for the rehabilitation, sustenance and support of people with intellectual needs.
"The most common difficulty faced by someone with intellectual or even physical disabilities is the rejection of the society and even of the closest relatives - explains the director of the Shelter Brother Francis - some end up roaming the streets begging to survive and others finish doing extreme hard labour". The center at the present time is filled to the brim and that's a reason why these Italian expats in Ghana are helping to widen the building and to give the people in there a number of appliances, such as computers and a huge washing machine, to help them live in better conditions. "Anyone willing to help is welcome!" they say at end of a long day at the Don Guanella Home.