Giving hugs and caresses to a newborn who cannot count on the presence and love of a mother and a father: this is what the volunteers of the Brescia association I Bambini Dharma do, which since 2011 has been cuddling and looking after the children newborns abandoned in hospital by their parents.
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Giving hugs and caresses to a newborn who cannot count on the presence and love of a mother and father: this is what the volunteers of the Brescia association do The Dharma children, which since 2011 has been pampering and caring for newborn babies abandoned in hospital by their parents.
A newborn does not only need nourishment, (numerous ...) diaper changes and a warm crib to sleep in, but it also needs affection, human warmth and physical contact… in a word, cuddles, lots of cuddles. And so in Brescia, a few years ago, an association was born that aims to donate to less fortunate children, those who, in the very first moments of their life, do not have a family to welcome them, this very precious resource.
The more than three hundred volunteers of de The Dharma children, people of all ages and appropriately trained, work in hospitals in Brescia, looking after both infants and those hospitalized minors who have been victims of maltreatment and who, for this reason, have been removed from their families.
The main activity of the association is precisely the "pampering", which takes the form of affectionate gestures, activities and loving care, which try to compensate as much as possible the absence of parental figures in the more or less long period that goes from abandonment to landing in an adoptive family, foster care or in an institution .
Volunteers try to create inside the hospital wards, often too aseptic and cold, of the spaces that are as welcoming as possible for their small clients, building around them a protected and enveloping environment in which they can find all the human warmth they need and recording the different moments of their growth in a diary.
"The association" - it is reported on the website - "with the funds it collects, it buys everything strictly necessary to create a comfortable accommodation (called 'Il Guscio') compatibly with the limited spaces of a hospital ward to be shared with the other patients: a cot, a bouncer, some toys and a layette. "
“By doing this, we also try to give these children a story: the moment of birth, in fact, represents for every human being the beginning of a path along which to leave 'footprints'. To mark these traces, the volunteers collect the passages and growth experiences in a diary, which will then be delivered together with the layette and personal effects to those who will take care of them once an accommodation is defined. "
The association's ambition today is to create a family home where the little ones can be temporarily housed, waiting to be given in foster care or for adoption: an alternative place to the hospital, where it is easier to pamper them, make them feel loved and welcome and provide for their needs.
Because no child should ever be deprived of the warmth of a hug.
Lisa Vagnozzi
Photo Credits: Barbara Mancini
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