Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Roma (Agenzia Fides) - In some parts of African mental illness is regarded as something supernatural, a curse by evil spirits.
People with a mental condition, considered dangerous and even contagious, are abandoned by their family or in some countries, Cote d’Ivoire and Benin for example are chained to wooden stocks in the village or in the forest. For Animists these people are possessed by the spirit of evil, the result of a curse on them and their family, and not knowing what to do they chain them up and are left to die. It is a popular belief that suffering purifies from evil spirits.
In the late 1980s, Gregoire and a group of friends started the Saint Camillo Association whose aim is to unchain these unfortunate people get them off the streets, care for them, rehabilitate them and reintegrate them in society.
Two years later he had already opened seven Homes with a total number of 800 people receiving care and treatment in a long process of rehabilitation and return to the village. So far three thousand people have been readmitted to their family.
Gregoire and his wife who have six children, continue this work, opening new centres all over Benin. (AP) (18/1/2007 Agenzia Fides; Righe:22; Parole:237)
