Since 1996, the Puntiti Therapeutic Community has opened its arms to welcome children, adolescents, and young people with profound disabilities, many of them orphans or abandoned. Here, hospitality and charity are not merely values: they are daily life. Every smile, every word, and every gesture of affection reflect the commitment of those who work at the centre and the strength of the charism of the Sisters Hospitallers.
Although the journey is not always easy, resources are limited, and needs are immense, the strength of this home lies in unconditional love, in the dedication of each sister and collaborator, and in the solidarity of volunteers and donors who share their time, talents, and generosity.
Discover the testimonies of those who work each day at Puntiti, sharing their experience of hospitality, care, and dedication towards the children.
Elba Marca, a collaborator for the past eight years, tells us that her work is marked by hospitality:
“First of all, with hospitality towards the children, with attention, with affection, with love… because the children here need a great deal of love. We are like their mothers.”
María Solís, a nursing assistant with 23 years of experience, regards her work as an act of love and dedication:
“My experience working at the centre has been very good. I have learnt many things: to value life more, to be a better person, to give a little more of myself each day with the children. More than charity, my work is an act of love, an act of dedication, with patience, with will, with gratitude for everything I have learnt here with the children, with the staff, with the sisters. They have taught me values: respect for life, patience, hospitality, charity, warmth in our work, in our service to the children.”
Patricia Vargas, administrative collaborator and responsible for health pastoral care, highlights the value of time dedicated to the children:
“For me, my work is a service of vocation, a service of commitment for the love I have for the children.
What makes this community different is the time we dedicate to our children in carrying out different activities, such as outings, integrating them into society; that is why we are hospitallers. The most rewarding thing is to receive, day after day, those smiles, that affection the children give us in spite of their limitations. That is priceless.”
Sister Luzzia Da Silva, a Hospitaller sister present at Puntiti for the past three years, recalls what this place means:
“I have been in the congregation since 1987, always working on behalf of the mentally ill.
Here it is a school to learn how to care for life, to protect it, and to defend the cause of the children, who many times cannot even know their own name, nor speak, nor walk. Here we practise the charity and hospitality taught by Saint Benedict Menni, who bore witness to God’s mercy alongside people in need. At Puntiti we become part of the children’s family, caring for them, helping them in everything, being their hands, feet, eyes, and voice, always in service to God.”
At Puntiti, every act of love transforms lives and reaffirms that charity is not only about providing help: it is about healing, dignifying, and restoring hope to those who need it most.