Fondazione Opera Don Pippo Onlus

Fondazione Opera Don Pippo has been established in 1952 by creating a welcome place for disadvantaged women and in 1971 it became a charitable foundation. Nowdays it offers a familystyle living environment to adult people affected by physical, mental, perceptives disabilities and try to make them feel like at home, by developing their talents, building friendship, making the most of life with the help and support of professional staff. This is obtained through the use of the appropriate socio-rehabilitative methodologies and techniques which aim at promoting a vision of life where Christian values are felt as an integral part of human beings. Fondazione Opera Don Pippo takes care of a socio-rehabilitative residential centre where people with difficulties can find a familiar environment where cooking, cleaning, washing and other type of activities (e.g. gardening) are part of everyday life. The Fondazione runs also a daily-care centre (in the same building) that offers workshops and leisure activities to its users allowing them to develope their abilities. Both centres are run by a team of specialized professionals which use the appropriate socio-rehabilitative techniques responding to the annual planning of the centre and the individual project established by the staff for each person hosted. The residents of Opera Don Pippo are in the majority women, they show different levels of psycophysical disability and they have an age comprised between the 30 and the 65 years old. At present the daily-care centre is attended by 14 people, while the residential centre gives hospitality to 20 people. In both centres each resident is involved in the managemet of individual and common spaces and time, with the aim to improve their autonomy through the participation in all of house activities. Moreover, the staff promotes socializing moments and meetings outside the building where the residents can have an experience of personal amusement and cultural enrichment. Fondazione Opera Don Pippo is coordinating two other projects: "Liberi di..." and "Kitchen Art", both for young disabled people with a good autonomy. The first teaches how to be independent from parents through living together with other people (how to cook, how to clean a house, how to take the bus, etc.), the second project is a cooking lab where the disabled can learn how to prepare traditional dishes and then sell it to local community during special events.