Social services help homeless man find long-lost sister

A 40-year-old homeless man from
Cameroon who is in poor health was helped by social services in
the central Marche town of Jesi to find his long-lost sister,
social workers have said.

   
The man, called Sunrise to protect his real identity, lived on a
bench of the Orti Pace area in Jesi.

   
Social services, municipal police and Catholic charity Caritas
tried to help him repeatedly without success until they were
able to track down his sister, with whom he was not in contact
anymore after losing his phone.

   
"Sunrise didn't trust us, he did not want to be helped or so it
seemed", said social worker Maria Pina Masella, who spoke about
Sunrise's story this week.

   
From the bench where he lived, "he started moving to other areas
of Jesi and then Ancona, he was constantly fleeing", she said.

   
"One day - explained Masella - we sat with him around a table
and started really taking care of him.

   
"We started researching his life, starting with the cities"
where he had resided, as well as hospitals that had treated him
for his health condition and the Caritas centres he had visited,
she explained.

   
"We discovered that he had a sister in Italy and that she
couldn't contact him because he didn't have a phone anymore".

   
Sunrise had in the meantime disappeared again but local police
in Jesi discovered that he had been detained by police in Ancona
so "we asked them to release him and that we would get in touch
with his sister, who lives with her family in Valle d'Aosta", in
northwestern Italy, the social worker said.

   
The siblings spoke on the phone.

   
The sister offered him her home and said she would take care of
him if he joined her in Valle d'Aosta, recounted Masella.

   
So Caritas in Jesi bought him a train ticket and an operator
from Caritas in Ancona escorted him to the local police
department who took him to the train because "we were afraid
that he wouldn't be able to endure such a long trip", she said.

   
"But the day after we celebrated - Sunrise had joined his sister
in Valle d'Aosta, she immediately welcomed him" and she will
"help him get treatment", the social worker concluded.

   

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA