Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Kinshasa (Agenzia Fides) – There are many centers in Congo being run and activities being organized by religious Opera Don Guanella, to meet some of the emergency needs facing the country. Among these are the Limete Workshop, a vocational training center for teaching carpentry, baking, and sewing for sixty children; the center for girls in Bobota, in the style of a family home, for the recovery of street children with the presence of teachers and on-site staff. Finally, the Point d'Eau, a daytime and nighttime center that welcomes hundreds of street children a day and offers them personal hygiene, clothing, food, and shelter at night with attention to their health conditions, thanks to a nearby medical clinic.
Fr. Mauro Cecchinato, a Guanelli religious working in the country, comments: “It is an initial contact for people who are living on the street and decide to open a path to family reunification, the first step for the social reintegration in school and in society. In Kinshasa, although attention is now centered on Goma, there are poor conditions that require decisive action."
The “Guanelliani” have been present in Kinshasa since 1996. Among the other initiatives they run in the capital of Congo are three residential centers for 75 boys (in Maman Africa, Esengo, Elikia), in addition to, the agricultural colony "Plateaux de Batéké” (at 110 km from Kinshasa) for 30 children from off the street, with the hope of returning to village life and farming, and 7 children with disabilities who are cared for in the center, in a family home. The main goal is the reunification of children with their family, if it is possible. In addition, they work on the spiritual, human, and professional promotion of each one, as well as their reinsertion into society. (AP) (Agenzia Fides 9/1/2010)
