Home » Interior » The summer of Ukrainian kids at Grest. «You welcomed us»
Don Lucio Ciardo and Don Antonio De Rosa of Caritas tell the story of the experience of around fifty teenagers to whom the doors of homes and parishes in Puglia were opened
“We are a small diocese but no one has held back.” Don Lucio Ciardo is the director of the diocesan Caritas of Santa Maria di Leuca, in Puglia. Before being Caritas director, however, he is also a parish priest and like many parish priests in this early summer he stays up late, between a grest and a school camp with the kids with long, very long evenings chatting on the beach. Among all the summer initiatives that the parishes have organized at the end of school, one has earned the small diocese a certain amount of press notoriety: for a week, in fact, there have also been around fifty Ukrainian boys and girls holidaying in Salento, arrived thanks to the CEI and the Italian Caritas.
“It is not only hospitality, food and lodging, as Caritas we must also give the sense of being together. We have tried to animate the whole community and we have succeeded also thanks to all the parish priests who have welcomed children and adults inside, for example, their oratories and in the Grest”, Don Lucio immediately makes it clear that, in these days, between a boat trip and a typical dinner, this being together has become an integral part together with the volunteers who have immediately started to work to accompany, help and even – when possible – translate where English is not enough.
«When they arrived in Brindisi it was already midnight and they were very hungry. We are southern people and we know how to do it: we prepared sandwiches for everyone and we partied together until almost three in the morning” he tells Times the priest, recalling the first of the convivial moments spent together with the Ukrainian boys and girls.
A journey of hope
«The first year we hosted 193 children, last year 452 and this year we will reach 700 people welcomed by the end of the summer. I believe it is the clearest demonstration that this is an experience that works and is good, especially for children”, comments Don Antonio De Rosa who in his role as animation manager of Caritas Italia oversaw, together with the embassies, the CEI and the Holy See, the organization of the “It’s more beautiful together” initiative which involves around ten diocesan Caritas in addition to the ACLI.
«Caritas is a global network, not a simple institution and has been in motion since the beginning of the conflict, paying particular attention to the needs expressed by the two Ukrainian Caritas». And by staying in the territories, those useful links are created to organize not only aid in terms of volunteers and resources on site, but also reception without getting lost along the way.
To cover the distance that separates Nikopol’, the Ukrainian town close to the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant and the scene of ferocious clashes in these two years of war, from the Apulian town requires tens of hours by bus. A journey of hope, literally, which began among rockets and explosions and ended between the white sheets of a bed a few steps from the sea.
Cries of joy
“The morning after their arrival, the chaperones immediately told us that the boys had slept peacefully, something that hasn’t happened in Ukraine for years,” says Don Lucio Ciardo, who outlines the contours of a summer vacation among boys like we’ve all had, sooner or later, with games and parties that involve the whole town. The day at the beach, the moment of prayer in church, the ice cream at the bar in the center on the day of the local market.
No one remains indifferent to these young people rescued from the war for a brief period of peace, not even the local restaurateurs who offer them lunch without asking for anything in return. It is a solidarity competition, but above all a bath of normality that even involves the mayors and local administrations, to whom the children show affection and gratitude for the welcome they have received.
«We don’t know each other, but you welcomed us. This made us understand that it is possible to build a dialogue even with those we don’t know”, one of them replied to a journalist who asked him what he would bring back to Ukraine from these holidays.
And for them, the people of Puglia, what will remain above all of this experience is the value of hospitality, of a precious welcome. «While we were partying, there was a girl in a corner, alone, crying – says Don Lucio -. I asked her why and she replied: “I cry because I see my friends who are happy.” And I can’t forget this crying of joy.”
