We imagined it during the bloodthirsty war that has left behind death, suffering, loneliness and difficulties for children and teen-agers, and it has now become a sign of hope and life for some of them that together are looking to find again the joy to live and a project for their future.
At the moment there are four houses: the first one was inaugurated on December 8th 2001, the second on May 18 th 2003 while the third one and the fourth ones have been opened two years ago for the boys and the girls that attend the schools in Lunsar. The total number of the residents is 40.
Murialdo Home is an activity of Murialdo St. Joseph Fathers in cooperation with the Missionaries' Friends Association that is an Association founded in 1997, with the purpose to take care of children, amputated, orphans and abandoned.
It is a proposal strongly connected with the life and the choices of san Leonardo Murialdo and that it gives further sense to the presence of the congregation in Sierra Leone.
THE CONTEXT:
Sierra Leone is an extremely poor country at the last place in the U.N. ranking of countries on HDI Human development Index . After a terrible war that lasted for ten years, the Country is still suffering from its catastrophic consequences. It is a country bad governed, that doesn't succeed in recovering itself, also because of the corruption that is anywhere.
Life expectancy is around the 30 years of age, childish mortality is very high and 85% of the people are illiterate. Medium salary, for the ones who has the fortune to have a job, is about a dollar a day!
After the war, in the suburbs of Freetown, the capital of the Sierra Leone, a district called Kissy Low Cost has risen. It is a district where the poorest families who cannot rent a house but one or two rooms have been gathered.
THE PROJECT:
In the Kissy Low Cost district, Father Maurice Boa, has founded a secular association, to involve young people with the purpose to help children victims of the war and the orphans that have suffered amputations. In this way two “family home”, have been created to give house to 30 children. Some of these children have a parent or a relative in life, but their economic situation is so disastrous that are not able to take care of them. Children who live in Murialdo Home have never attended the school: some of them came from very isolated villages, while others directly arrive from refugees camps. Each house has its own "mama" that takes care of the children: many of them have suffered an amputation from the rebels during the war, two of them are blind, 6/7 children are orphans. All of them attend now schools, to assure a best future to them.
