Quebec church member honored for assisting people with disabilities

MONTREAL, CANADA — People with disabilities face many challenges and barriers in their daily lives. For people with disabilities living in a culture foreign to their own, those barriers are double. Church member Luciana Caddeo recognized a need in her home country of Canada and decided to do something about it. In 1980 she and her husband, Silvio, launched the Multi-Ethnic Association for the Integration of Persons with Disabilities, an organization dedicated to helping people with disabilities living in Canada who are of different ethnic origins.
The government of Quebec recently honored the Montreal-based association with the Quebec Citizenship Award, given annually to an organization that has “excelled in working to strengthen intercultural links” among Canadians, according to a news release.
The award coincided with the 25th anniversary of the organization, which started in the Caddeos’ home. The association serves people with disabilities from more than 60 countries.
“Considering that most of the people in Quebec are Catholic — and that never before has an association established by a member of the Church of Christ received that award — it has been really a breakthrough to get it,” said Silvio Caddeo, a minister for the Montreal church.
The West Side church in Searcy, Ark., supports the Caddeos.
August 1, 2006