In the 1990s, a young Ugandan
Catholic nurse named Rose Busingye began working in the slums of Kampala with
the many women there suffering from HIV/AIDS. Many of them were refugees from
civil war in the north, having been raped, beaten, forced to kill in order not
to be killed, to steal children in the hope of one day returning to see their
own children.
Even though Rose brought food and
medicine to them, she often discovered that the women had not taken their
medications, so sunk were they in despair and a lack of self-worth. She was on
the verge of abandoning everything, when she received an invitation to stay for
some time in Italy. It was from Fr. Luigi Giussani, the Italian priest who had
founded Communion and Liberation, the movement to which Rose also belongs. After
those months spent in Milan, she returned to Uganda with a renewed desire to
share with these women what she herself had experienced: the infinite value of
her life. Of every life.
Soon things began to change. Out
of that change grew Meeting Point International, an organization led by many of
the same women Rose had ministered to. In time, new efforts arose, including
schools and orphanages?projects that continue to embody Pope Francis's
injunction to ?go to the margins.? In Your Names Are Written in Heaven,
veteran Italian journalist Davide Perillo tells the inspiring story of Rose
Busingye and ?her women? with clarity, compassion, and insight.
