I would like to invite you to go on a beautiful virtual journey around the world with me to celebrate together the 25 years of Salute e Sviluppo. Don’t worry about the cost, I pay for everyone, as it is a virtual journey. We can visit many countries, even if I can’t remember them all since the list is long. Please fasten your seat belts and let’s start immediately from Turin, where Salute e Sviluppo was born 25 years ago, from the imagination of Fr. Efisio Locci, on September 09, 1996. It started from the idea “to go out into the world and heal the sick.” It began to take the first steps of his existence, an essential steps because it also includes the hospital in Haiti. Upon the invitation of the General of the Order of the Camillians P. Frank Monks (on 03 December 2001)we move to Rome to give the organization an international dimension, proper to the Order. In Rome, everything is great! Here, the enormous preparation for its recognition to operate, such as the acquisition of its legal personality (July 08, 2002) and the recognition as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), under the decree of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which enables it to promote and implement international projects in collaboration with the Ministry (March 26, 2003). Upon completion of the bureaucratic procedures, we started working by engaging all our skills and knowledge.

Salute e Sviluppo was born to be closer to missionaries, who are the most significant development factor in the history of poor countries. Our core areas of intervention are people’s health and human development with particular attention for health and hygiene, nutrition and schooling, agriculture and livestock, without precluding the field of development, rights and peace. Our motto is “let’s take care of health and we will increase human development”. The geography of our activities consists of the five continents.

The first part of our intercontinental trip visits the projects carried out in the first 10 years and includes 33 projects in Africa: 1 hospital in Benin (in Djougou); 5 projects in Burkina Faso(development for women, enhancement of traditional medicine, Zootechnical development, agro-food development, industrial development for the polishing and packaging of rice); 19 projects in Kenya (training and prevention for Migori students, support for Nairobi slum children, breeding for Nkubu hospital, drinking water for Nkubu hospital, agricultural development for Nairobi slum women, assistance for terminally ill patients with AIDS, training for women in the slum of Nairobi, fight against HIV, mill for the widows of Tabaka, a hope for the sick of Nkubu, solar energy for Nkubu, livestock development for the women of Karungu, fight against malnutrition in Wajir, fruits and vegetables garden development for the women of Karungu, a greenhouse for women in the slums of Nairobi, fight against poverty in the South Imenti district, food support for the schools in Nyanza, access to sanitation for Gunga); we can also visit 1 project in Madagascar (schooling for leper children); 5 projects in the Central African Republic (primary school in Bossemptélé, hospital start-up, mother-child centre, children’s health service, mother-child clinic); 1 maternal and child hospital in Somalia; 1 well for the hospital and the neighbourhood in Lomé – Togo.

I hope you are enjoying this trip because we are now going to visit South America and Asia. The first stop is Brazil visiting 4 projects (training and reintegration of women, social reintegration of single mothers, tejiendo la vida, training and reintegration of women in Quixadà); let’s jump to see 1 project in Colombia (hydroponic cultivation with the elderly people); and a trip to Peru for 1 project (assistance to people with AIDS).

We will now leave Latin America and we will move to Asia for 11 projects. We begin with the visit to Myanmar with 2 projects (rescue to the victims of cyclone Nargis and professional training for girls); a visit to the Philippines with 2 projects (strengthening of the San Camillo Center and aid to the Aetas tribal community); and a long journey to the immense China with 1 project (Scholarships for the villages of Liaoning). Many emotions are coming back on the waves of my memories, thinking of the moment I met the catholic people coming from the cities around the imperial city in the far North of China! The universality of Christianity is a reality that you experience as the breath of humanity, with intense and unforgettable emotion.

As you can understand, our work constantly always adapts to the situations, habits and customs of peoples and their political sensitivity. We are interested in helping people keeping into consideration their backgrounds and fragilities. All other aspects are not our concern. We always wish that we can do more. Unfortunately, there are so many problems and difficult situation in this world and we hope we could help them all, but in the reality, we do what we can, proudly, and we always try to do our best, and that is what matter the most.

If you are not tired, let’s go through the second part of the journey to visit the other 36 projectscarried out in the next 10 years of intense commitment. We especially focused to African countries. Each country has its own characteristics, its beauties, its riches and its infinite poverty. The only recommendation is: never give up. Cooperation is made up of small and large things, but all of them are precious. Any help we can give is a great treasure for the needy who receive them; it is a small effort for us but a tremendous gift for him. Fatigue will soon disappear, the good done will remain and the Good Lord will make it eternal.

First stop is inBurkina Faso with 11 completed projects and 2 on the way, a poor country eager for progress. In this country, there are also fearful episodes of terrorism in the North and also not far from our work area. Our effort is to implement food production facilities, increase schooling and build a hospital.

We have built a farm of over 60 hectares to cultivate rice, corn and other cereals; built canals for water irrigation, with submersible pumps in the large public canal, operated by photovoltaic panels. The pumps carry the water into our distribution channels. The farm is well equipped with a well for drinking water, facilities for staff, warehouses, workshop and a covered parking spaces for one truck, 3 tractors, 2 milling machines, one combine harvester, 2 bulldozers, one bulldozer, plows, grader, fertilizer and other equipment.

There is a barn for 60/100 milking cows, with fodder equipped with a milking parlor, a cooling and milk storage room, and facilities for staff and the veterinarian. Also here the electricity is generated with a photovoltaic system, generator and public lighting line. We have created 3 large warehouses for cereals, fruits, and vegetables, food processing, and packaging in the industrial center. The milking center is equipped to analyze milk and dairy products: here too, the electricity is supplied by the public network, by a generator, and by photovoltaic systems. The farms are in Bagré, province of Tenkodogo, which national planning has chosen as a pole of national agro-food production for the whole country. Also in Bagré, there is the drinking water processing plant that is entrusted to women.

Other projects to visit in Bagré, Tenkodogo and Garango are: 2 nursery schools, 2 primary schools, 2 secondary schools: first four years and second three years, an arts and crafts centres with 6 sections for 6 trades. For schools we need to keep in consideration that each classroom of the nursery and primary classes accommodates about 80/90 children, the secondary schools welcome 50 children per class; the arts and crafts classes welcome 50 young people. All the schools are in the diocese of Tenkodogo and are projects carried out in collaboration with the Bishop Prosper Kontiebo. Once built and furnished, the local partner handles the school buildings.

Let’s visit in Kenya (4 projects) the great aqueduct for the 15,000 inhabitants of Karungu. Water is taken from Lake Victoria, pushed into the hills with large pumps, purified and filtered in three huge reinforced concrete tanks and sent to the Karungu area, spread for more than 5 km, along which are the kiosks for the water distribution. This project allows all the site inhabitants to access drinking water, while previously, they drew directly from the polluted lake. Other projects are: maternal and child health in the Imenti South district; fight against cancer for the female population of Karungu; food self-sufficiency for the women of Wajir in partnership with the Camillian nuns, in a semi-deserted area on the border with Somalia, in the former Annalena Tonelli center martyred by the Somalis. Insecurity also prevails in this area.

There are also: a small project in Pakistan for the Christian minority and one in Togo against sickle cell anaemia and one in Vietnam for access to drinking water and against cancer for children and the population, because the water of Mekong’s groundwater is polluted by the excessive use of pesticides for rice production.

We take off again and go to the Central Africa Republic, today the poorest country in the world; it was once called the Switzerland of Africa. A beautiful country, full of forests, a population of peaceful nature. Since it gained independence (it was a French colony) it has always been governed by generals, even though it was a republic by name. Today there is an elected president, but there are Russian soldiers from the Wagner group who preside over the country and the government. The successive coups d’etat have impoverished the country, made it insecure, plundered enormous riches of the subsoil. In the revolution and civil war of recent years there have been, out of a population of 10 million, two and a half million refugees in neighboring countries, 50% of school and health buildings as well as private homes have been destroyed. The roads are bad; the population has nothing to eat except cassava. Security does not exist. General services do not exist. It is difficult to understand how the population survives. Our trips are also unsafe; it is our risk and danger. For the Italian government the country is absolutely insecure.

In this context we have carried out over 15 projects,a hospital with 120 beds: surgical hospitalization, renovation, and furnishing of the operating rooms; construction of the medical department; refurbishment and furnishing of ophthalmology and dentistry clinics; construction and furnishing of the neonatal ward; construction of the pediatric department; building of the maternity department and delivery block with operating room for caesareans; construction of the administration department; construction of the department for guests and volunteers; construction of the first aid, administrative reception equipment; financing of hospital health services; an increase of health services in three villages with the mobile clinic once or twice a week. Other aids are the photovoltaic system and the new generator for the whole hospital (we are 200 km from public electricity) and various containers with hospital equipment, furnishings, machinery, the purchase of ambulances, machines, a tractor, a pickup truck. There are also all the projects carried out for the population: food emergency; we feed children; school food; safe motherhood; economic and nutritional empowermentfor women; health and hygiene training for the population; construction of three wells for drinking water; State Diploma Nursing School under construction, which is the third largest nursing school in the country.

The support activities for the Camillian missionary community of Bossemptélé in CAR began with the courageous opening of the new mission of the Benin province. The mission included the small hospital of the Carmelite Sisters but it never opened due to the death of their sister-doctor in a road accident. Today’s mission comprises the John Paul II Hospital and the only parish in the town and the surrounding villages. The characteristic of the mission is the great poverty, the isolation, the insecurity, the commendable courage of the Carmelite nuns and of the Camillian religious. Bossemptélé is the Vice prefecture, it is a settlement 200 km away from electricity; there is no drinking water, electricity or gas. It has an elementary school and a primary school but that is not sufficient for the number of children. For that reason, the Sisters have made a kindergarten, a primary school and the first three years of secondary school. The war has endangered the lives of our confreres, who were heroic in staying in to care for the sick. During the war, the spaces of the hospital, the spaces of the nuns’ schools gave shelter to two thousand Muslim people. The two communities of Carmelite Sisters and Camillian Religious worked heroically without stopping. The p. Bernard Kinvi Anani, director of the hospital, received the Alison De Forges Award from Human Rights Watch in 2014 for courage in protecting dignity and human rights. This award is also a recognition for the Communities of Camillians and Carmelite Sisters who have assisted all the needy with the risk of their lives, bringing 1,500 Muslims to safety across the border of Cameroon. The Carmelite nuns and Camillian religious were the heroes of the Christian, witness of Christ’s love for man, in the poor and isolated town of Bossemptélé in Central Africa. I want to thank in person all the people that in the last 25 years have cooperated with us in order to help the people in need of the world. In 25 years we have helped the sick, feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, educate the children. We have increased justice and peace in the world.

F. Efisio Locci

If you want to support our activities and us you can donate to:

Salute e sviluppo

IBAN IT62G0200805181000400321240 (Unicredit)

or

IBAN IT17 X076 0103 2000 0002 6485 086 (BancoPosta)