Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Rome (Fides Service) – Disastrous sanitary conditions in Madagascar were aggravated during the years of war particularly with regard to children and health care. Seeing this situation the Lazzarist Fathers built a Village at Vohipeno, in a poor isolated area in the south of the Island where people have no water or electricity supplies and the nearest telephone is 40 km away. The Village is made up of several huts, one for handicapped children opened in 1986 has 170 young people aged between 16 and 25 most of them are orphans. Many are victims of polio. There is a centre for rehabiliation, a workshop which makes special orhepaedica shoes and a school where they can learn a trade. There is also a feeding cetnre for undercourished children with 30 children at a time, mostly orphans with no one to care for them. There is a hut for TB patients, mostly mothers with children to whom the Fathers provide care as they can. Vohipeno also has a home for poor families who are provide with a home and cook rice for the others. (AP) (7/11/2003 Fides Service; lines:19 words:243)
