STREET CHILDREN, ORPHANS OF HOPE
In Burkina Faso in Central West Africa, street children are struggling to survive without love or hope. Koudougou is a city where people survive on the little the earth offers, red and arid like the desert. Sometimes it is not enough to support a family and so many children are left to fend for themselves on the streets. In Burkina Faso, a village’s poverty is measured by the number of children living on the streets. There are hundreds of them in Koudougou. To eat,they adapt: they sell handkerchiefs at the station, they collectiron, plastic bottles and anything that can be exchanged for a few coins.
DANGEROUS ROADS
These children have no protection and there is always someone ready to take advantage of them. So it can happen that unscrupulous people introduce girls into the world of prostitution, marking them forever. For boys, their destiny is to be recruited by gangs dedicated to violence or to become child soldiers.
A HOME AND AN EDUCATIONAL PROJECT
Sister Luigina, an Italian missionary, got to know these children one by one and found a way to remove them from the street. In agreement with the Bishop of Koudougou, she has begun welcoming thirty girls into the nuns’ house, which is now in need of a major renovation.
The friars of Saint Anthony have decided to support this project. But having a roof over your head is not enough. An individual recovery path will be created for each child, so that each one can have a dignified future. In addition, we friars will finance the construction of a well, for the water needed both for the house and for the cultivation of the land for the sustenance of the little guests. Later, on the same grounds, a structure will also be built to accomodate around 100 children.
HOW YOU CAN HELP THIS PROJECT COME TO LIFE
Could help buy bunk beds for the girls’ refuge in town
Could help buy the bricks and pipes needed to build the well
Could help pay for agricultural tools and equipment and seeds and plants for the boys to start planting their future, or it could help to pay for uniforms and books so the girls from the refuge can start to go to school.
Would be generous enough to fund both projects in the first crucial months when there is much work to be done.