Nacopa (Mozambique) - Overcoming leprosy

The lepers of Nacopa finally have a new home. With a year and a half of labor the twenty houses in which they live, once in ruin, have been rebuilt by the friends of the Sant'Egidio

A house before

association of Namitoria. 

Today leprosy is completely curable, no longer a medical emergency in Mozambique and many people that were previously sick have managed to reintegrate into society. This does not mean that some of them don’t still suffer many limitations and continue to need assistance and companionship. 

In fact, companionship is what is being experienced for the past ten years by the Namitoria community, a small village in the Angoche district, in northern Mozambique. The community’s members visit the leper colony of Nacopa, which is located nearby, and the forty five guests distribute goods such as food and clothing and organize the annual Christmas lunch.

The friends of Sant'Egidio in the leper colony are mostly senior citizens. They came as children, bringing their sick parents, and once they grew up, since they had nowhere to go, they never left the compound.

However, as the number of sick guests declined, that place was gradually allowed to fall into disrepair. The houses were in terrible conditions, falling apart, and unsafe and without doors or windows. 

One of the new houses

The community understood that the situation needed taking care of, to bring some normality and dignity to the small group of recovering sick guests.

Because the house represents the possibility of a different life, it is the sign that that things are beginning to show a change for the better. The brothers and sisters of the community of Namitoria, helped by the efforts of other people from Sant'Egidio, began renovating the houses and then they handed them over to the elderly with an official declaration a "termo de entrega". 

It was the end of an emergency, the beginning of a possible future, a normal one. An elderly leper, walking into his new home, said" now I can sleep peacefully. Even if it rains, I will not get wet".

Summer with Children of School of Peace in the Philippines

Summer is Fun at School of Peace – EAT.PLAY.LOVE.PRAY.

Like every year when a summer vacation comes  (April-May) after school year, children in School of Peace together with young people and friends of the community enjoy the days of summer activities. These days marked by friendship and cheerfulness to share and strengthen the company alongside the children and the community. Together in an environment of blissful days every weekend, we spent doing art workshop sessions, play time with children, organizing party, formation and sharing the gospel with the children. 

The joy of summer is something children will truly benefit from making their vacations worth while learning and having fun at School of Peace.

Summer ends in a whole day vacation with children, their parents and young people of the community in a swimming pool on a fun-filled Saturday of June 1^st , a friendship that goes beyond our service.

Free Trainings with Youth for Peace

June 9, 2013 l Manila, Philippines

Young people of Sant’Egidio  receives free training of swimming lesson from the Civil Defense Action Group of the Office of the Civil Defense of the Republic of the Philippines. 

This is a good opportunity for young people to be trained not just on swimming but an opening for them to learn new skills and to increase their knowledge on civil defense. Trained by E.L.I.T.E Forces (Expert Leaders of Integrity Task of Elite Fierce Organization of Rescue Command in Emergency and Security , this is just one of the skills that young people of the community may become skilled at which they can use in their future profession or  basically in times of emergency and security needs.   

Added to something that can be very useful for them to increase their morale in the service for other is to learn valuable things at a very young age. Succeeding free trainings on the coming months includes Martial Arts and Military exercises for future rescue operations that can be very useful in times of disasters and natural calamities like typhoons which we used to experienced in the country yearly. 

Bujumbura (Burundi) - Collecting medicines and providing medical visits: a web of solidarity for the elderly

Since 2009 the Sant’Egidio Community of Bujumbura has developed a particular friendship with the sixty or so elderly patients that are cared for at the Maison Sainte-Elizabeth, the only rest home in the country. Through simple gestures such as visits, conversations, walks in the city and sharing holiday moments - for example the Christmas lunch - the elderly have found joy and hope for life.

The institute however suffers from a severe shortage in terms of health assistance and availability of medicines. 

For this reason, starting from 2011, the Community made a proposal to various doctors to visit the elderly at no cost. Out of this a web of solidarity was spun that guarantees a weekly medical visit to the guests of the institute. It was then necessary to address the medicine problem. Sant’Egidio asked the town’s pharmacists but also launched a targeted campaign through the social network aimed at sensitizing people. The results were very encouraging and showed that many people desired to help those less fortunate than them: the medicines that were collected this way allowed the opening of a small pharmacy within the institute.

The elderly welcomed with joy these caring gestures by their younger friends. One of them, Bernard, thanked them, saying: “Before you were doctors of the heart, now you are also doctors of the body”.

But the Community entertains bigger dreams. All of the services provided by Sant’Egidio are characterized by a tension that is both utopian and pragmatic. It is pragmatic because the different initiatives confront the immediate necessities of the poor and try to find small-scale and concrete solutions. But it is utopian as well, because every accomplishment feeds the ambition to contribute to unleashing greater energies aimed at doing good. 

There are many other elderly waiting to be treated. In Burundi, basic medical treatment is only guaranteed to children younger than five or pregnant women but not to senior citizens. Since the majority of the elderly lives in conditions of extreme poverty, frequently someone who cannot rely on the help of a son is forced to forego a medical visit or a medicine. In addition, there is a severe problem with hygiene. Most Burundian homes lack running water and when you are unable to access water on your own and do not have someone who can do it for you, you need to save every last drop of water. This impairs hygienic conditions: the elderly are often affected by parasitic diseases and skin ailments.

This is why the Community wants to carry out an educational effort within civil society of which the collection of medicines is only a first step. The goal is to suggest and promote, together with other associations, law proposals specifically aimed at benefiting the elderly, so as to not exclude or penalize an age group that will continue to grow even in Africa.