We often talk to you about the Central African Republic, one of the poorest countries in the world, and about our projects, most of which focus on improving the capacity of the John Paul II Hospital in Bossemptélé, the main health centre in the Ouham – Pendé region. For more than 20 years, this centre has operated with courage and determination, representing – for the local population – the only possibility of access to adequate medical care.

On 30 June, the project “SENÌ- Health and Hygiene for Bossemptélé Communities“financed by FONDATION ASSISTANCE INTERNATIONALE (FAI) with the aim of building the new infrastructure needed for the hospital, supplying medicines and medical consumables, recruiting health personnel and promoting basic hygiene and health education among the local population.

Thanks to this project, we were able to improve the hospital by building a well, adequate to meet the entire water needs of the health centre, and installing photovoltaic panels to ensure a stable supply of electricity. Now that the activities have been concluded, both the well and the panels are fully operational.

In these 30 months, we have also provided the hospital with the medicines and medical supplies it needed to guarantee care for all patients and awareness-raising – pivot of the project – gave excellent results with more than 5000 people who attended weekly meetings focusing on specific topics such as nutrition, vitamins, tobacco, alcohol, personal hygiene, vaccinations and environmental hygiene. Thanks to the mobile clinic team, neighbouring villages were also visited on a regular basis and were able to attend these meetings.

The last objective included in the project was the training of new health personnel for both the John Paul II in Bossemptélé and the health centres in the north of the country. The young people’s interest in this type of training has gradually grown: while in the first year 11 people took part in the training courses, the following year there were more than 30, 25 of whom passed the entrance test to become an assistant de santé.

We at Salute e Sviluppo are very happy to be able to update you on the success of this intervention, and we trust that the many other actors who have been involved, such as the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Higher Education, Association pour les Œuvres Médicales des Eglises en Centrafrique – ASSOMESCA and the Order of Carmelite Sisters of Bossemptélé, as well as the Camillian delegation in the Central African Republic, which runs the John Paul II hospital in Bossemptélé – will work to ensure that the mission of awareness-raising does not end with this project, but can continue to be carried out, producing long-term benefits for all those in the most difficult circumstances.