Rome (Fides Service) – It was the first association in Italy to address the problem of HIV/AIDS and children in need of assistance and to guarantee them a life as normal as possible like other children of their age. Born in 1989 in Milan, thanks to Father Giuseppe Bettoni it provides home care and hospital treatment for children with AIDS and their families. During the 1990s other centres were opened in Rome (1993) and in Florence (1995).
Archè collaborates with major paediatric centres and hospitals in Milan, Rome and Florence: these structures and local social assistants report cases of children and families suffering social problems because of AIDS.
Archè projects include Home and Hospital assistance; amusement in hospitals: entrustment, Summer Rainbow Weeks; Expressive workshops; self-help family groups: prevention programmes in schools; Home; support for communication of diagnosis; international projects.

2003 Summer holidays organised by the Rome centre
“The holidays were held in a large country house in Viterbo with the presence and the collaboration of educators members of CEMEA Lazio association”, Paola Liuni directress of Archè Rome Centre told Fides.
Formation but also the realisation that the holiday was the founding principle for education based on doing that personal experience is the main road for interiorising an event, an idea, and a competence.
Activities – manual, expressive, play, non verbal – considered an important means to build relations with other were the basis for the organisation of daily programmes with activities in groups formed according to the children’s personal needs and abilities. Our helpers aim to connect processes of knowledge and situations and to face without discrimination theoretical and practical, verbal and non-verbal aspects and act and reflect, on educational activity. Reflect and act means helping each child to mature motivation to learn and act.
Education becomes an opportunity for all to make an effort in the pleasure of doing, promote non superficial commitment towards activity done for personal interest but also for the interest of being together with others sharing discoveries, enthusiasm, defeats, the will to start again and continue to search.

Children aged 3 to 15 took part in the holiday organised in age groups for specific activities during the day.
Small groups of 5 or 6 children are a guarantee that each child will receive special care. The potential of the group as a protected place in which to experiment with communication, as place of privileged relationships in which to develop one’s abilities to grow experiencing oneself in the encounter with others, is amplified in moments of activity in extended groups. We start from a situation of co-existence to identify ourselves with that of a community where a network of communications emerges in a space for expression, which promotes opportunities to actualise creative abilities, which lead to new solutions. Every child and adult becomes for the other a possibility, which opens the path to creativity and choice. For every child there is a story of suffering and pain and for the workers and volunteers there is the will to risk one’s own story in an encounter with others.

Holidays for mothers and children new-born to 4 years
The holiday takes place in large houses, one near Rome for children on holiday and the other in Tuscany for children and mothers. The house is arranged like a home to foster dialogue among children and adults of reference. The holiday is a time of communication in a space for expression promoting opportunities for creativity leading to new solutions. Each becomes for the other, another possibility opening the path for creativity and choice. For each child and for each mother there is a story of suffering and pain, for the workers and volunteers there is the will to risk one’s own story in an encounter with others.

Rehabilitation of HIV+ children
Despite law (L.135/90) and generous commitment by Archè which aims to promote all rights and improve the life quality of HIV+ children accompanying them in a process of self help and empowerment, not many of them take part in residential holidays with their peers.

Principle obstacle is taking the therapy.
For children taking therapy is difficult and they have to be helped by an adult of reference able to interpret the fatigue and also the worry, which emerge at the moment of therapy. Anxiety and the difficulty of the time of medicine taking expresses the lack of understanding and that impossibility of these children to be in contact with an illness of which they know not even the name. In HIV+ families there is an air of secrecy and it is difficult to speak openly about the illness. It is very difficult for the mothers to be in contact with an illness, which they have transmitted. Trying to play down the situation they often build a relationship with the child based on caring for the body, therapy, medical checks, but they cannot help the child come into contact with emotional pain related with the illness nor can they meet his needs and difficulties or give meaning to life.
For the older children the acceptance of therapy goes hand in hand with the acceptance of the illness. Besides trying to take pills without being seen by their friends, rejection of the therapy often becomes a means of getting more attention from the adults and help in the process of awareness of the illness. For these children who grow up with sickness and death and are never projected towards a possible future from the adults of reference a relationship of trust with the helper who knows about HIV is a significant and necessary experience for a new possibility of awareness of his or her illness, for a global shouldering of responsibility for self and others and above all for a possible project with regard life expectations.
“Every year during the holidays, says Paola Liuni, we realise the many problems of a therapy which is so affected by the personal psychological aspects of each child and also the precise hour and manner of giving the therapy and how it can affect group activity and the serenity of the community. The work of the helpers is most important and at times determinant. With the help of an adult the holiday can be a first step towards awareness of a difficulty and opening of dialogue which can facilitate the integration of the therapy in the routine of daily life.
Some children can suspend therapy for a brief period for a time of vacation. Archè will continue to work for the rehabilitation and social integration of HIV+ children by promoting insertion in various contexts of holidays for children in a condition to suspend treatment and continuing to pay special attention to those who still do not have this possibility.» (AP/PL) (3/4/2004 Agenzia Fides)