Neighborhood stories

Nearby: from the Latin "vicinus", an adjective in turn derived from "vicus" (which means "village"): to build a village, a community dimension, a union beyond barriers. Today, especially in big cities, we have lost the dimension of the neighbor and everyone has barricaded themselves within its four walls. From some recent surveys it emerges that 50% of Italians do not have good relations with their neighbors for various reasons, first of which the annoyance caused by noise. Certainly Covid has not fostered ties between people of different, albeit close, families, but it is not the fault of the pandemic if we seem increasingly insensitive and selfish.

However, there are stories that tell us another possibility, another direction ...

In Turin, in my city, I met people who try to experience a possible integration; in the same courtyard live families and very different realities in origin, culture and religion: Italians, foreigners, a Chinese community, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christians, Muslims (with a mosque). There is also no lack of experiences of "solidarity condominiums" in which one lives as in a community of families, young people, the elderly; these stories remind us that it is not necessary to perform extraordinary feats or leave to save the world. We need to start with small gestures within our reach.

Nobody should feel discarded or excluded: the poor lady who sometimes turned to her people across the landing to ask for some spice or condiment or other small food products, the neighbor, who gladly donated, occasionally asked herself for a little salt or sugar or something else inexpensive to make sure that the lady did not feel needy, but could in turn be useful and generous. “No one is so poor that they cannot give anything” and this woman made her neighbor perceive it not in words but in deeds.

These testimonies make us aware that only together can we build the common good.

Roberto Lerda
NP Novembre 2021