Zambia

Location: Zambia, village of Chitanda
Period: from 2009
Partner: Abantu Zambia

Projects in support of the village of Chitanda

SETTING:
Lo Zambia, a sub-Saharan African country with a population of nearly eleven million persons devoted mainly to agricultural production, is a nation with very slow development, a very low income level, and a high rate of illiteracy. Despite a partial cancellation of its public debt in the mid ‘90’s, Zambia remains one of the countries in the world with the highest debt per capita.

PROJECT:
The Kepha Foundation, in partnership with Abantu Zambia, beginning this year has supported initiatives in Chitanda, a village located in an agricultural region 150 km. from the capital. Abantu Zambia is a project of Belgians Bruno and Sybille du Parc, who, with the acquisition of farm land in Lusaka, north of the capital of Zambia, have developed a management activity in agriculture and forestry which has endured since 1994.

It is exactly the long-lasting and autonomous development which characterizes the action undertaken in Abantu Zambia which responds to the needs of the local population by helping farmers in developing and managing their own projects.

The activity in Abantu Zambia is directed principally towards education, with 20 schools built or renovated, and health care, with the construction of assistance centers.

In particular, the projects facilitate the construction of wells to ensure water supply, agricultural and livestock production, aid and funding of projects especially those regarding women and the construction of orphanages for the many children who, each year, are left without parents.

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Burundi

Period: from March 2008
Beneficiaries: 249 orphans and numerous families of Burundi
Partner: Congregation of the Bene Tereziya Nuns, Gitega

Participation in a micro-agriculture project in support of orphans of war and AIDS victims in Burundi

SETTING:
For many years Burundi has been an ongoing theater of war as well as plagued by the AIDS virus, two factors which account for the death of a multitude of victims each year and leaving many children orphaned.

PROJECT:
The Kepha Foundation has decided to support and fund a micro-agriculture and pastoral project in Burundi, run by the Congregation of the Bene Tereziya Nuns of Gitega.

In this complex territory, the Congregation of the Bene Tereziya Nuns had strongly wanted and backed the project in support of their community and of the families who take war orphans and AIDS victims under their care.

The Congregation, founded in 1931 with 85 communities in Burundi, Chad, Cameroon and Tanzania, has worked many years to bringing relief, in such a difficult and tormented territory, to the tragedy of children who are left orphans.

To date the community has taken care of 249 children of various ages, searching for a place where each one of them will be welcomed and cared for; where possible, the nuns attempt to entrust the children to families who are able to sustain them or offer them lodging their very homes. The Community of Gitega also directly houses 100 orphans in its own Welcome Center.

The aim of the mission and of the Kepha Foundation’s funding is to provide assistance to families who welcome the orphans, assuring them a safe place according to Christian principles together with promoting agro-pastoral activities to enable the families to become self-reliant and self-financed. Also encouraged is the formation of associations and cooperatives amongst families, even those from different ethnic groups, able to work together in a sign of peace.

The final objective of this project is to enable the Burundesi families to become self-sufficient and to permit the integration of the orphans in order that, once grown, they may rightfully reclaim their parent’s property and use it for their own autonomy, in the hopes that the acts of war may cease and the process of peace and development may commence.

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Sri Lanka

Location: Sri Lanka
Period: from 2005
Beneficiaries:approximately 1850 children from Sri Lanka
Partner: Pontificia Opera Missionaria per l’Infanzia; Pre-school for St. Theresa (Elpitiya); Franciscan Missionaries of Mary St. Theresa Convent (Batticaloa); St. Joseph’s School for the Deaf (Regama).

Three children’s aid projects, Sri Lanka

SETTING:
After many years of internal ethnic conflict which has caused countless deaths, Sri Lanka was stricken by a tsunami on December 26, 2004. The violent tidal wave killed nearly 40,000 persons, devastated entire towns and villages, leaving orphans and poverty throughout the country.

PROJECT:
La Kepha Foundation wanted to support three important initiatives in Sri Lanka in collaboration with the Pontifical Mission for Children, with the aim of helping disadvantaged children, particularly those left orphaned by the tidal wave which hit the nation.

The three projects were implemented in different areas of Sri Lanka:

In Elpitiya the Foundation contributed towards the reconstruction and support of the St. Theresa ‘s preschool, directed by the Sisters of the Angeli diocese of Galle, which houses more than 120 children.

In Batticaloa, Kepha took part in training programs for young refugees and orphans of families dispersed by the tsunami, held in the convent of St. Theresa (Diocese of Trincomalee) which currently assists over 1560 children.

At Ragama the Foundation supports a lodging structure for deaf-mute children at St. Joesph’s school for the Deaf (Archdiocese of Colombo), specializing in vocational training aimed at the preparation for future occupational opportunity. There are currently 161 children being assisted in the structure.

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