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Africa

A Journey through the Kunama Culture.

The Kunama ethnic group resides mainly in the Gash-Barka region of Eritrea, between the Gash and Setit rivers, in the western and north-western regions of Tigray and in small areas of Sudan. There are an estimated 260,000 Kunama, most of whom live in Eritrea. They represent about 2% of the Eritrean population. The history of…

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Chad. Promoting Integral Health.

At St Michael’s Hospital in Donomanga, Chad, a team of health professionals, co-ordinated by the Mexican Comboni Missionary Brother and medical doctor, Juan Carlos Salgado, does everything possible to ensure that patients are treated with respect and professionalism, healing them and helping them to have hope. We went to visit the Hospital. We left Laï,…

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The Celebration of Marriage.

After the initiation ceremony (Anfura-la) or the passage from adolescence to youth, the young Kunama sets out to find a girl to marry. This phase is also marked by some rites, such as that of engagement (Sussa-ma). Among the Kunama, young people are free to choose the girlfriend they want and girls are equally free…

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Religious Belief among the Kunama.

When the Kunama are asked: ‘Ayshila mekobino?’, they reply: ‘Ánnala’la makobinke’ (we believe in God). The word ‘Anna’ (God) comes from the word ‘Annena’ (in Kunama it means creator). The Kunama believe in Anna (God) who created the heavens and the earth. For them, God lives far away, up there in the universe, and no…

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Getting out. The purification of the mother.

The life of the Kunama, from birth to old age – and even after death, is a tapestry of traditional rites and ceremonies handed down from the ancient fathers (ande) and scrupulously observed. The first of these rites is the celebration of the Isata Olà, (Gettng out), the purification of the mother after childbirth (dagosa)…

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Kenya. Savings and Credits in Cooperative.

An initiative of the Huruma Self-Help Group, it makes credit accessible to that segment of the population excluded from formal economic circuits. It all started in the Christian communities of Kariobangi, a suburb of Nairobi. In 1991 Verona Huruma Savings and Credit Cooperative (VH Sacco) was founded, an informal savings group made up of 15…

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Between terrorist threats and Unsolved problems.

The political instability seen before, the ethnic tensions both in the country and in the region, the collapse of the institutions in some of the neighbouring countries (first Mali then Burkina Faso) and other factors created the conditions for an increase of the terrorist risk in Ivory Coast Jihadist groups linked to Al Qaeda or…

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Africa. The New Eldorado of Beer.

Competing for the continent are the French Groupe Castel and the Dutch Heineken. An informal economy strongly rooted not only in the villages but also in the big cities, slow and insufficiently extensive distribution channels for goods, and low purchasing power on the part of the local populations are the three factors that in recent…

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DR Congo. North and South Kivu, Security Companies, Business as Usual.

In the eastern regions of the country, strong presence of Wagner paramilitaries, arms traffickers, and former soldiers of the Foreign Legion. Former soldiers of the Soviet Armed Forces, veterans of the French Foreign Legion, businessmen engaged in arms trafficking and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are used as a front to finance rebel militias. It looks like…

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Libya. The missing Uranium: a boomerang effect of NATO’s attack of 2011.

The revelation that 2.5 tonnes of uranium were missing from a warehouse in Southern Libya, by the International Atomic Energy Agency provides one more example of the damaging consequences of the 2011 attack by NATO to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi’s regime. In 2016, President Barrack Obama admitted that this Libyan episode was the worst mistake of…

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Africa and the Synod. Walking Together.

The upcoming World Synod of Bishops and its preparations in synodal processes around the world show how the signs of the times challenge the Church today in the light of the Gospel. We can no longer hide the great general problems currently shaking it. Sr. Anne Béatrice Faye, Senegalese, a religious of the Congregation of…

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Ivory Coast. An uncertain future.

A leading country in West Africa, Ivory Coast has weaknesses that could not only block economic development but also lead to turmoil. The consequences of two civil wars fought in the past decades are still felt and the leadership, who is responsible for these wars, has not yet implemented measures that could avoid the troubles…

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Advocacy

Semia Gharbi. Fighting against eco-mafias.

She played a key role in a campaign that challenged a corrupt waste trafficking scheme between Italy and Tunisia, resulting in the return of 6,000…

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Baobab

The swallow brings the summer.

The Black and white swallow flew high up in the clear, blue sky, wheeling and diving, his fast, pointed wings carrying him at a great speed. Swallow…

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Youth & Mission

Pope Leo and the Youth.

Welcoming, listening and guiding. Some characteristics of Pope Leo with the youth During the years when Father Robert Francis Prevost was pastor of the church of Our…

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