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HEALTHY MILK AND CHEESE IN BAGRÉ

We at Salute e Sviluppo are particularly happy to announce the conclusion of the Healthy Milk Project in Burkina Faso: it was a long and demanding adventure that saw us in the Bagré area for five years, but which in the end gave its fruits and satisfactions.
We have often talked about Burkina Faso and the living conditions of the local population: in particular, the central eastern area of the country has seen us engaged in numerous projects, All aimed at increasing the quality of life of those living in this particularly poor region and proven from the point of view of food and health. Deficit appears to be the production of milk that is either imported or – very often – is infected due to sick and uncontrolled animals. Salute e Sviluppo decided to enter into this context with the aim of remedying this lack.

In 2017 began the activities that, financed by the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI) through the funds of 8×1000 to the Catholic Church, proceed expeditiously until the following year. In 2018 the situation in the country changes radically: a strong political and social instability makes Burkina Faso dangerous and, consequently, the movement of human and material resources suffers a slowdown. Then global pandemic caused a new stoppage.

About a year ago, work started again and led to the completion of the structural and architectural works, which, in recent months, have been equipped with all the necessary machinery, shipped from Italy by container. The project involved several stages: before the construction of a stable and the purchase of livestock, all cows were imported into the area, quarantined and checked by local veterinarians who ensured their health. In a second step, special premises were set up for milking, milk collection, packaging and all dairy production activities. This last stage saw p. Felice de Miranda, President of Salute e Sviluppo, on a mission in Burkina Faso with two experts who taught local communities to work properly with milk and produce various types of products, from yogurt to fresh and aged cheese.

Salute e Sviluppo’s project was designed to have more than one beneficiary: on the one hand all those who are employed in the various activities of the supply chain receive an income and have the opportunity to work and support their families, locals can finally have access to a whole series of products not available at the local market, having, however, the certainty of eating healthy food. These products will also serve to supply the local schools and Camillian hospitals, to improve the food conditions of children and the weakest.

Salute e Sviluppo activities have as a fundamental requirement to be absolutely sustainable, rooted in the territory and fundamental for the autonomous development of the local population. This project is proof of this: the training of staff was the last piece of the project – but one of the most important – now the premises have the opportunity to proceed independently improving and increasing dairy production.

The support of the local Camillians who first identified the need to help the area of Bagré and who assisted us during all the activities was decisive. Even now, despite the end of our project, we are certain that their support will be essential to ensure that the dairy industry continues to function properly.
We thank the CEI for giving us the opportunity to carry out a project that will improve the living conditions of the people of Burkina Faso, much tried and tested by the situation of their country and for this even more in need of help.

Would you like to see Mr Fausto trained? Click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIFzFgbb3mg&t=36s

STONE BY STONE THE FUTURE OF GARANGO IS BEING BUILT

At the end of each article we promise to update you on the progress of our activities, we want to respect the word given and we are really happy to be able to give good news. Today, in fact, we will talk about the project, presented a few months ago, of Realization of a kindergarten in the city of Garango in Burkina Faso: funded by the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI), and started last February 1.

Burkina Faso is one of the poorest areas in the world and in particular the region in which Garango is located has many shortcomings, both from the point of view of health and education. We are talking about a territory where schools are often far away and difficult to reach, where traditional culture still plays a central role in family life and where families do not always want to send their children to school.

Pre-school education is almost completely non-existent: children between the ages of 3 and 5 have no facilities that guarantee adequate training and provide a springboard for their subsequent education.

Salute e Sviluppo wants to respond to this need by giving the possibility to about 100 children to live school, sociality and education. If this is the primary objective, the secondary objective is to succeed in changing the widespread mentality, especially among the older generations, still skeptical about the need to have their children studied. Thanks to an awareness programme, we aim to build a much more conscious and attentive community.

The project, as we anticipated, consists in the construction of the school that will host the children: three classrooms, a canteen and a rest room, in addition to the services and rooms of the administration. Subsequently, the school materials will be provided, the training of the operators who will take care of the children and the constitution of the three classes divided by age.

We should wait until February 2023 to see the project completed and the first classes can begin their journey, but already now the progress that has been made is remarkable: we can see from the photos how the structure of the school building was almost completely completed externally, the fence wall already finished and the other environments under construction.

The project is absolutely sustainable and aims to last a long time, remaining rooted in the territory, thanks to the involvement of all the local people: starting from the Camillian community on site, arriving at the operators and school staff, all made up of people belonging to the territory of the diocese of Tenkodogo.

We hope that by the end everything can proceed as planned and that next February the school will be operational and ready to welcome children from 3 to 5 years in the best way. We are proud of all these stones that, one on top of the other, are contributing to the construction of the place of the childhood of many Burkinabé children.

UKRAINE: TOGETHER TO OVERCOME THE EMERGENCY

Four months have passed since Russian troops crossed the Ukrainian border and war broke out. Every day the news of massacres, tragedies and horrors followed one another at a dizzying pace.

Salute e Sviluppo together with the associations CADIS, FONDAZIONE PROSA, MISSION CALCUTTA ONLUS, MADIAN ORIZZONTI and CESMET immediately mobilized to provide help and support to the fleeing Ukrainian population and their Polish neighbors in managing the millions of refugees.

Thanks to your donations we were able to promptly send the funds for the first emergency, starting the project TOGETHER FOR UKRAINE: ASSISTANCE TO MOTHERS AND CHILDREN FLEEING THE WAR.

The local Camillians, since the early stages of the conflict, have made every effort to provide as much help as possible to refugees from Ukraine. Commissioned by the Polish government to manage the first reception, they installed infopoints in the central station of Warsaw where trains arrive and in the west station of Warsaw dedicated to buses. At the moment there are about 7 million people who have fled the war crossing the border, most of them are mothers with small and elderly children. Many have stopped in large urban centres, but they do not have enough space to accommodate them all.

In Lomianki Burakow, about 15 kilometers north of the centre of Warsaw, the Camillians made available their religious residence for the reception of about 30 refugees, providing them with medical, psychological and legal support. While in Ursus, about 13 kilometers to the west, a facility used for the shelter of the homeless was equipped for the reception of refugees, at the time 19.

In both centers there are many activities, designed especially for children: snacks for Mother’s Day, concerts and circus performances for the day of the child. In the structure of Lomianki is also planned the establishment of a kindergarten and the recovery of green areas surrounding the structure.

The project that Salute e Sviluppo, together with all the other associations, has decided to carry out is of the duration of three years and provides for the support of all refugees already present in the two structures and the restructuring of the upper floor of the residence of Lomianki – currently unusable – which inside would have another 9 rooms with the possibility of accommodating another 20 people.

With your donations for the emergency in Ukraine, we will continue to support the many refugees who, with the help of the Polish Camillians, try every day to put together the pieces of a normality that has now disappeared.

In this dark moment, you can turn on a light.

Click here https://www.salutesviluppo.org/dona-ora/choose the method of donation and write in the reason HELP UKRAINE.

 

We thank MISSION CALCUTTA ONLUS AND CADIS for the images used.

THE FUTURE OF SNEHAGRAM

Towards the future of young people at Snehagram Centre Transition programme for independent life is the title of the third phase of the initiative that sees Salute e Sviluppo engaged in India to help HIV-positive children thanks to the contribution of the Catholic Church, which allocates part of the 8xMILLE of the total IRPEF revenue for charitable interventions in favour of the Third World.

HIV continues to be such a serious problem for India that the government, especially in recent years, has been pushing a massive education and prevention campaign. The results of this policy have been remarkable: in most of the territory, the percentage of new infections has dropped considerably. However, the number of HIV-positive children and young people who have been orphaned by this same disease and who risk a life of poverty and segregation still remains high: marginalised because they are considered infected and alone without relatives.

Sneha Charitable Trust (SCT) has been working for many years to welcome, care for and educate HIV-positive orphans, aiming at their full integration into society. Salute e Sviluppo, supported by the Conferenza Episcopale Italiana (CEI), assists the centre’s activities through a multi-stage programme, each of which refers to a specific age group. At the moment, the third project is underway, which focuses on young people aged 18 to 24 and aims to get them into work and achieve autonomy/semi-autonomy.

All children accommodated at Snehagram are encouraged to choose their subjects and activities according to their own inclinations. This enhances learning and allows specialisation in a specific field that can be their future employment and source of income. Some decided to specialise in agriculture, others in animal husbandry, others in IT or mechanics. Based on these fields of interest, the centre equipped itself with everything necessary to help the young people acquire effective practical training: fields were created, a greenhouse and a farm were built, seeds, fertilisers and various equipment were bought.

In addition to vocational training, a key part of the project is the construction of housing that will be allocated to each young person according to their chosen field of work and health status. Those who, over the years, have specialised in areas such as mechanics or IT need to be close to the city, as opposed to those who, working in the fields or on the farm, need to stay in their immediate vicinity.

Those who benefit from this project are both the 40 young people who, having grown up at the Snehagram reception centre, have become adults and need to become socially and economically self-sufficient; and the community, which will have a young and specialised workforce that can be employed in several professional sectors.

The stigma of HIV is still very much felt in India, and being able to integrate these young people into the social fabric, thanks to the technical skills they have acquired, means moving them away from the segregation and isolation that a disease like AIDS has as its direct consequences in some parts of the world.

Salute e Sviluppo launched this two-year project in 2018. During the first year, the set objectives were achieved and the deadlines were met. The advent of the pandemic in March 2020 made the smooth continuation of the programme impossible: all Snehagram’s activities were converted to cope with the COVID, which erupted violently in India, affecting most of the centre’s guests, workers and even local Camillians.

It was not until last autumn that all project activities could be resumed. At the end, we at Salute e Sviluppo will be proud to introduce you to the 40 boys from the Snehagram centre, who, thanks to the help of the CEI, can now look forward to a peaceful life fully integrated in their society and community.

Pakistan: “Families have finally felt safe”

“The project has created an emotional and psychological impact on beneficiary families, financial as well regarding the nutritional aspect .The families have been feeling safe while receiving the animals. ” These are the words of Father Mushtaq, local coordinator of the Microproject for the promotion of the social and economic inclusion of families in Okara District, Pakistan.

Family-Maand-Masih

The Microproject, funded by Italian Caritas, aimed to improve the social and economic conditions of three families in Okara district, in Pakistan, thanks to actions for food subsistence and income generation.
The beneficiary families, identified by the local partner, were in extreme poverty condition, because of the discrimination suffered for their different religious beliefs.They were marginalized and abandoned by local public administrations and and they did not have access to sufficient food or economic income.

To allow them creating their own livelihood, we have purchased some animals (cows, goats and buffalo) and through the production of milk they have been able to meet their nutritional and economic needs. At the same time, as a first step, stocks of animal feed have been purchased and delivered to them. A local veterinarian have been teaching them how to take care of animals, how to feed them,how to protect them from the most common infections and some essential notions for breeding regarding nutrition, hygiene rules, diseases.

The beneficiary families were able to use the milk for their own needs and thanks to the help of operators belonging to the Lay Camillian Family they were able to sell part of the milk obtained in the local market, ensuring a healthy and accessible product to the members of the communities of the three villages.

purchase-animals2

Furthermore we have been also organizing training classes on dairy products in order to wide the knowledge and the skill of beneficiary families. In those training were involved the beneficiariy families took part in the in the training sessions but also other inhabitants of the three villages involved in the project. This sortof training was highly appreciated because allowed them to diversify their diet and at the same time offer products that are not always available on the local market, increasing the chances of sales, raising their spirits and encouraging them to dream of a better life.

At last, we also have organized nutritional education activities to stimulate a positive change in their eating habits and to reduce malnutrition of which they suffer, which makes them eligible for a large scale of vulnerabilities. During the meetings, explicative posters and banners have been designed to give support for correct information, clearly showing some good food practices.

training-session

“In general, now everyone is hoping for better days and has expressed their intention to help others as well. This gift has renewed their determination to move forward”concludes Father Mushtaq.

Emergency State in Central African Republic

The situation in Central African Republic is extremely critical. Since the presidential elections at the end of December, clashes and attacks have continued by guerrillas from an alliance of militias rejecting the re-election of Faustin-Archange Touadéra.

There have been dozens of casualties and the balance and security situation seems, to date, precarious.

This exacerbates the existing problems in the country: the rise of food prices, the lack of drinking water, the blockade of essential goods wich are imported from abroad.

On Monday, the latest major attack, reported by Ocha (United Nations Office for Humanitarian Affairs), hit the MSR1, the country’s main supply and trade route linking the capital Bangui to the nearest port in Cameroon.

Even our mobile clinic service, for security reasons, cannot reach the villages where it provides health and psychological services to the communities.

Elections

The appeals of Central African President Faustin-Archange Touadéra’s rivals were rejected by the Constitutional Court. He was officially elected with 53.16% of the votes.

On Monday, January 18th 2020, Danièle Darlan, the president of the Supreme Court declared that Faustin Archange Touadéra “is re-elected President of the Republic in the first round of the elections on December 27, 2020”.
The Court, however, lowered the participation rate to 35.25%, far from the 76.31% of registrants provisionally announced on 4 January.

His opponents denounced ‘massive fraud’ and the impossibility for two out of three voters to vote.

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Salute e Sviluppo ONG

Piazza della Maddalena, 53
00186 Roma, ITALIA
+39 06.899281
info@salutesviluppo.org
C.F. : 97570320016

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