The nursing home of the Antonian Society of Bethlehem has finally received the long-awaited washing-machines.
For a long time, sister Caterina and the staff at the nursing home used to find it extremely difficult to manage the laundry of the guests. In fact, the already old washing-machines, used to leak water and struggled to wash properly, making it necessary to wash clothes again by hand and rinse them with water, a resource that is worth more than gold here at Bethlehem!
However, thanks to an important and generous donation by the Commissariat of Terra Santa of the Friars Minor of Tuscany, today we can find two brand-new washing machines that will allow sister Caterina and the volunteers who assist with the laundry to continue offering their help to the elderly people that find support in this nursing home. Also, thanks to this important gesture of solidarity that has brought Tuscany and the elderly people at our nursing hometogether, it has been possible to purchase a new fridge and a freezer for the kitchen.
Isolated, abandoned by their families, ill and without any kind of access to support or social services: in Bethlehem, elderly people don’t have an easy life! There aren’t any type of services or programmes of social security or pensions that could help to alleviate, even just in part, the suffering of these families, and hence the increase in the number of elderly people who live on their own or abandoned in shelters that, due to lack of funds, cannot even cover the basic needs or guarantee the minimum medical care.
By choosing to support the nursing home at Bethlehem, the Commissariat of Terra Santa Tuscany haschosen to keep alive the memories and the traditions of a whole community, recognising the key role that elderly people play in preserving the historical, cultural and identity-making heritage of Palestine.
Find out how you can also get close to the poor and marginalised elderly of Bethlehem.
