We wrote about the laying of the first stone ten years ago. We did it convinced that we would move forward. From then to today a long way has been made and with it many projects that have made this living space, in the quiet Modican countryside of the San Filippo district, the place where children on the autistic spectrum or with mild disabilities are building their future. A future of work and a future of life. Future work with the ethical hotel “La casa di Toti” that Muni Sigona “thought” of as a tool for growth and integration between special people. Muni Sigona, the mother of Toti, a young autistic man now twenty-one years old, who together with other special children has become a manager as well as a user. It is here that, in the structure created with the economic contribution of various subjects, special patients become protagonists of the reception. And this is where we turn the page and look to the future of life.
Hospitality and lots of love. Love with a capital “a”.
It is here, in “Toti’s House”, that love began between Chiara and Luca, both with cognitive delays and autistic traits. At the moment it is a long-distance love affair: she works in a nursery in Catania, he in the ethical hotel in the San Filippo district in Modica. They see each other on weekends but their dream is to move in together. Three years ago, Cupid also launched his arrow into the hearts of Giovanni and Aurora: between workshops and work, the engaged couple finds time to cultivate their love. Instead, it is not yet love but only friendship, the feeling that binds two other boys, Gabriele and Martina; both are autonomous despite suffering from Down syndrome (she) and cognitive delay (him). Both dreamers but with their feet firmly on the ground; the two boys live in the hope of going to live together one day.
“La casa di Toti” is a social enterprise. Ethical hotel but also workshops and life experiences.
One of these is sailing therapy in the floating laboratory active inside the ethical boat, confiscated from human traffickers, donated to the Casa di Toti and moored in Marzamemi. The ethical B & B designed and created by Muni Sigona in her family property, an 18th century villa with the help of her husband Michele Lanza, is managed by five autistic boys, Giovanni, Luca, Gabriele, Toti and Giuseppe.
Three houses equipped with everything including a kitchenette. The quintet that manage them do everything: from welcoming to checking in, from cleaning to breakfast in the large structure which is spread over a single floor in an area of 300 square metres. There is a large living room, dining room and kitchen, a bathroom and a hall with a glass roof. And then two triple rooms, a single room and four bathrooms as well as the laundry room and a room for the operator who supports the kids at night. In charge of them is a supervisor just to gradually lead them towards concrete autonomy. “By taking care of others they also learn to take care of themselves, they take care of the garden, clean the swimming pool, work hard from Monday to Friday and at the weekend they return to their families – explains Muni Sigona – the interaction with the guests who book with us it is constant. Holidays in ‘Toti’s House’ are an ethical choice”. Once a month the structure opens for the ‘breathing weekend’ where our special kids live a co-housing experience for three days, with qualified staff according to the needs of the guests – tourists. An interdisciplinary team from the ‘Parentage’ psychopedagogical studio in Catania selects the kids to start the ‘breathing weekend’ and evaluates whether or not they will be included.
On the road paved with dreams and hopes, the meeting with Franco and Andrea Antonello of the “I bambini delle faite” association.
Thanks to them, the path of fund raising was opened which brought in the funds to build “Toti’s house”. Many subjects who believed in the project, companies, banks, foundations. Jovanotti also took up the appeal. Now we hope that the singer-songwriter will make a trip to…Sicily and see with his own eyes what special people are managing to create with the love they have in their bodies, with the emotions that free from the heart, with the help, physical and moral, of those who believed in the project. Muni Sigona in the front row who now dreams of the birth of a neuro rehabilitation center. For the socio-occupational one, the fruits are being reaped with the strength of the belief that even special children have an edge. That extra gear that, once engaged, takes you far. It will certainly be for the neuro-rehabilitation center which will not remain just a… dream.
