Lima (Fides Service) – HOGAR SAN CAMILO, the first home for HIV+ persons in Peru was inaugurated on 30 September 1995 by Camillan Father General, Father Angelo Brusco. It was opened at a moment when there were no structures for HIV+ persons and those people were strongly rejected.
Alfredo used to say “Tell people we are humans, we feel, we walk...” it is for him that with the power of love we bringing the world of HIV+ nearer to the world of the healthy and to the families in particular. With the therapy of love we are improving their health and we see in this experience the miracles of Jesus “ Go in peace your faith has healed you”.
Life at Hogar is a normal family life; the same daily actions, easy and difficult. Everyone like in a family takes an active part everything: clean the house, wash the dishes, lay the table, water the flowers in the garden, welcome visitors to Hogar, organise therapeutic meetings, recreation etc. ask whether a person has taken their medicine or seen the doctor, if the family came to visit him, or is he ahs personal problems which make him seek isolation etc.if he is eating enough or refuses food etc. if he practices the bio-security norms specially if he washes himself... if he is able to forgive himself and his family. And most important of all, it he is able to pray and receive God’s forgiveness and to build a friendship with the Lord.

If we think that many people have nothing to eat for two of three days every week, or they have nowhere to sleep, to wash, to find a place at Hogar is like winning a lottery. Not only are the troubles suffered at home, a thing of the past, they receive the necessary peace and tranquillity, food, and all sorts of activities and the encounter with the Lord which makes Hogar a place where people gradually develop “integral health”. A week at Hogar is enough to see the first effects: weight gain, appetite, smile, security and peace.

Hogar today.

Lima (Fides Service) - “To understand Hogar you have to live there, Father Zeffirino explains: it is a lovely colonial style home which has an air of peace and tranquillity and something magic which attracts people. It is nice to walk under those ochre yellow columns whose colour is enhanced by the sunset with the reflection of pink clouds.
We are in central Lima, the old part of the city once the home of the nobility today a district of poor people drug addicts, criminals. One of the most dangerous places in the city, if you ask a taxi driver to take you to Barrios Altos he will usually refuse. The Home is surrounded by busy streets with the noise of traffic, fumes, dust but inside Hogar is different, very different
A large front door, number 300 tells us that we have come to Hogar San Camilo; we enter, a black gate says we must wait for the doorman to open, and then we enter what was once a convent and is now a Family Home for HIV/AIDS patients.
Hogar is a home full of life: the patients like it, they feel it is their home, HIV+ groups ask to come here for meetings at the national and local level, once a month we meet with a group of Religious who work with HIV+ people, high schools, parish groups come to be with the patients to learn what they must do to avoid being infected.
This abandoned convent and marginalisation and isolation have given rise thanks to the Camillian charisma a miracle which only love can achieve. Many who visit us ask where the patients are and are surprised when a member of the staff, the doorman etc. says “I am HIV+, here we are”. They are incredulous because they think people with HIV/AIDS must be in bed, but the beds are still made and so they realise that... it cannot be an illness, which takes away desire to live and walk, work, sing and why not dance. They realise that they are still alive and from their misadventure they have learned to love life and they want to let the whole world know.
We must not forget the 14 people who make home visits and at 9.30 am with the bag full of medicines and personal medical reports they visit more than 300 patients in their homes. They make their way to the homes, inhospitable, uncomfortable, up and down steps, hills, along dirt tracks in the blazing Summer sun, to make 20 to 30 visits every day. They come back at about 2 or 3 for something to eat and then sit down to put information collected into the PC and prepare the visits for the next day. The patients, family members, helpers, personnel canteen for HIV+, meetings, groups activities, manual work, meetings in schools and parishes, with the ministry, with associations and NGOs, retreats etc., are the signs of life with which we are able to make life loved and lived.
Hogar is a Home which is a haven, a point of reference for all who want to understand how to help those with HIV/AIDS and how to avoid being infected and to prevent others from being infected, but it is also a centre of life, where death is present but not the fear of death because hope, stemming from love is open to the resurrection. We have triumphed! (ZM/AP) (3/4/2004 Agenzia Fides)