Italy

Map of groups

Key figures

  • First organisation 1962
  • Member organisations 16
  • Trial members 0

In late 1960 in Verona, a group of young Catholics who refused traditional charity-giving, decided to live with poor people who were subsisting on their salvaging work. They wanted to work with them to find long-lasting solutions to their problems. In December 1962, one of them, Vincenzo Benciolini, came back from France where he had spent several months living with various Emmaus communities. He then set up the rag-pickers community, which drew on the ethos and organisation he had discovered in France. The community became an official member of Emmaus in 1966. In 1967; 24 towns in the north of Italy hosted the Emmaus international work camps, organised by the Union of Emmaus Friends and Companions (UACE) of France. The event was a great success and contributed towards Emmaus’s development and prominence in Italy.

Member organisations