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Redaelli Center

Topics: Childhood

Where:

Djiri

Target audience:

Little orphans and children without guardianship

Who is following the project?

Br. Italo Bono

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Background

Congo gained independence from France in 1960 and subsequently became the first African communist country. Since then, coups and revolutions have followed one another, leading to a civil war that – in alternating phases – continues to this day. This situation of instability has led the country to a contradictory condition: despite being one of Africa’s main oil exporters, more than 50 percent of its inhabitants live below the poverty line.
The most dramatic fact of this policy is the conditions of poverty in which many “invisible” children live, deprived of rights and forced to adapt to life on the street.

Franciscan presence

The Franciscan missionary fraternity of “Notre Dame d’Afrique” in Congo Brazzaville was founded in 1991 on the initiative of the Friars Minor of Italy with a twofold objective: the proclamation of the Gospel and service to the poorest.
After a short period, the Franciscan presence extended to the capital city of Brazzaville, where there are so many children and young people, abandoned from an early age, living in the streets alone, defenseless, invisible.

Project

For them, the friars have given life to the “Ndako ya Bandeko”, project, which in the local language means “house of the brothers”. At the beginning, the Franciscan friars welcomed street children and adolescents only for the night, to keep them away from the dangers of the street but the real need was to offer these little ones a real home in which to grow up. Among the friars who took care of the children there was also Father Angelo Redaelli, who died as a missionary in Congo Brazzaville in 2005.