A delegation of Sant'Egidio from Rome, Genoa and Pavia spent the first days of 2025 - just at the beginning of the Jubilee ‘Pilgrims of Hope’- with the people living in the psychiatric hospital Sadik Dinçi in Elbasan. There are more than 300 patients who have been friends of the Community for 25 years.
‘There is nothing but loneliness and sadness here,‘ said one of them, ‘we only sit and wait for the door to open and see you‘. Music, tasty food and a gift were offered in all wards. About sixty sick people gathered in prayer in the hospital courtyard on the Day of Epiphany. Afterwards, they all went out for a meal in a nice venue in the city, it was a meal with the scent of freedom.
This year the celebrations in Elbasan were enriched by a meeting with the inmates of the Institution for the Execution of Criminal Sentences (IEVP) in the district of Lezhë. Since 2021 it has been housing only psychiatric patients who have committed crimes. At the moment more than 400 men live there in very precarious conditions. Their life is hard not only because of their imprisonment, poverty and isolation. Many, even though they have no sentence pending and are rehabilitated, remain in the institution because they have no future prospects after being released.
Thanks to a cooperation project on ‘Human Rights and Mental Health in Prison’, the Community has been implementing a series of actions over the past year aimed at training staff (prison guards and socio-medical workers), providing activities in the prison, and starting up paths to reintegrate patients who have completed their sentences. Indeed, they remain in prison because they lack family support or resources and places to stay.
During the Christmas period, it was possible to enter the prison and get some of the inmates together in the outdoor spaces with Italian and Albanian songs and dances. It was possible to pass through all the cells, with a short visit and a cake as a gift for those who were not allowed out,
