Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Huambo (Agenzia Fides) – The “seeds of the future,” in Angola, are 450 children living in Huambo, in the western heart of the country, supported long-distance by Italian families who decided several years ago, along with the NGO AVSI, to help the “Semente do Futuro” Center, working for education and cooperation in love. These children and young adults go to study every day in the Center, followed by adults. There are teachers who give classes and others that take care of the after-school activities. They can also eat, which is not always such a given fact in this area. There are medicines to treat the frequent illnesses and vaccinations. Whoever is need of clothing can find it here.
It all began in the difficult years of the civil war, with the hard work and care of the Trapist Community of Italian and Angolian nuns in Huambo. The year was 1980 and they wanted to offer help, consolation, and social and personal rehabilitation to all those who knocked on their convent door. Now the Center is administered by the local association “A Semente do Futuro,” under the leadership of Fr. Lukamba, an Angolian priest, and with the long-distance aid from AVSI, which permits free assistance to the children. Since the end of October 2003, the nuns have been living in a more isolated area, where there are conditions for greater silence and retreat and where they work on providing medicines and on cultivating the fields. “More than a choice, ours has been a need: the poor were asking for this, how could we turn them away?” the nuns said. Later, with the collaboration of the WFP (World Food Program), we began rudimentary “soup kitchens”: at first, it was only a ladle of mush distributed to each one on the patio, each person bringing their own plate.
The nuns later organized a dining room for accommodating the elderly, young people with missing limbs, the sick, and above all, children. Once the war was over, the WFP, along with other organizations pulled out of the project and the AVSI intervened. Through this long-distance support, they were able to provide the children with lunch, school materials, medicines, and many activities such as courses on personal hygiene, as well as learning to read and accounting. The fundamental characteristic of the project, in Angola as in other parts of the world, is that these children can count on their teachers and other adults to be there for them and truly worry about their future. They study with them and grow up with them...In a social context that is slowly but surely recovering from the wounds of a long civil war, where poverty is so widespread and unemployment is a large problem, “seeds of hope” are blossoming in the hearts of the children. This is the great goal for the “Semente do Futuro” Center in Huambo. (SL) (Agenzia Fides 17/3/2009)
