“Protected”: this is the word with which our civil service volunteer Silvia has chosen to describe the guests of the Mahotas center of the hospital nuns of the Sacred Heart.

The institution, which is located in a suburb of Maputo (Mozambique), deals with children, teenagers and adults with various forms of mental and physical disabilities, from the mildest to the most serious. Working and helping in this sector in Mozambique is a real challenge: “People see mental illness as a spell, so families decide to turn to traditional healers and doctors, especially in rural or suburban areas,” Sister tells us Encarnação who has been working in the center with four other sisters for many years. The stigma linked to this type of disease is very strong and the patient is left to his fate due to lack of means in the family and support from state institutions. Children are also victims of this lack of interest: the father often does not accept to have a sick child and all the weight of assistance falls on mothers.

These prejudices create marginalized, disadvantaged social and outcasts, who cannot find their place in society and that no one wants. But this does not happen inside the center of Mahotas: all those who enter undress the adjectives that society has given them and dress themselves in the dignity of a person of human being. During the day, everyone is called to do something, everyone can talk, everyone can express themselves, everyone can learn and teach according to their abilities and attitudes. Nobody stays behind.

Dora, who was an educator within the Center last year, touched the daily difficulties: “It is not easy to talk about mental health, because already leaving the gate of the structure there is a complicated world, where a boy with Down syndrome is allowed with difficulty get on a bus. It is not out of wickedness, I felt the welcome and generosity of the Mozambique people on my skin, but out of lack of information on what remains a very strong taboo”.

Silvia, on the other hand, did theater therapy with the patients of the center: “I believe that in a context like the African one, where many materials are scarce and where the educational approach is very rigid, both in the family and in schools, working with the body is very important. In the body reside our first sensations, our first traumas, the body is the means that connects our inner world with the outside. Starting from this, we can reach a very deep awareness of what we are and what we want to be, and this is the only way to be at peace first with ourselves and consequently with others, to create a more just society “. This activity is even more important to them that they are often discriminated against for their bodies: Silvia’s dream of a world where no one is left behind is the same as AGAPE and, as difficult as it seems, the center of Mahotas shows us that miracles can happen, and that every person who is Engage, even with a kind gesture or a smile, can make a difference.

“You assume that by going to a developing country” you are the one who goes to teach, when, in reality, you are the one who learns that with much fewer resources and dedication you can do wonderful things.”