The Telema Mental Health Centre in Kinshasa is a place where the mentally ill are welcomed and respected. We saw it for ourselves. Many mentally ill people roam the streets of Kinshasa. It is easy to see what they are. They walk alone, half-naked, with shabby, dirty clothes and dishevelled hair. They live off people’s…
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Four African Sisters have restored life to a monastery founded in 1931 by a French Franciscan in the Berber village of Tazert. We are in Tazert, a Berber village of 3,500 inhabitants sixty kilometres from Marrakech. “This is an oasis of peace for anyone who comes to visit”, says Sister Noellie Kabore, a Burkinabé…
Read moreSince independence, the Church has been somewhat close to the MPLA, although it has always opposed civil war and worked for reconciliation. A turning point in relations between the Church and the MPLA took place in 2015 when protesters who supported the activists of the Angolan Political Prisoner Support Group tried to gather on the…
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The result of next August’s elections cannot be taken for granted. About 14 million Angolans will be called to choose the president of the republic and their parliamentary representatives for the next five years. It is estimated that at least a fifth of the young voters will go to the polls for the first time;…
Read moreThe Mediterranean as a meeting place. Brotherhood as a sign of life. The canonization of Charles de Foucauld. The new archbishop of Algiers, Msgr. Jean-Paul Vesco speaks to us. From the terrace of his office, he sees this large blue expanse where one’s gaze is lost in the distance. This great sea, the Mediterranean. He…
Read moreIt is an evergreen tree, native to tropical Africa especially West Africa. It usually grows to an average of about 13-20 meters in height with a diameter of about 50 cm. The plant produces a star-shaped fruit which contains between 2-5 kola nuts. About the size of a chestnut, this little fruit is packed with…
Read moreAt least 90% of African cultural heritage is currently outside the continent, mainly in European museums. But a recent campaign for the repatriation of African art is helping to make restitution of looted artefacts a reality and finally restore heritage to the African cultures that made them. The debate about the return of valuable historical…
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Three young African women from different backgrounds recount the story of their social commitment as they become a reference point for many African women. The personal and professional future of Kamil Ahmed, born in Somalia in 1999, depends on the government of Kenya, which announced the closure by 2022 of the refugee camps of Kakuma…
Read moreIn the African context, Angola, a country with a population of over 33 million inhabitants, has always represented in one a mirage and a contradiction: the mirage of overflowing riches from oil and diamonds but also a contradiction due to the poverty of its peoples. War has always been the master: from 1961 to 1975…
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They have lost the prophetic voice they had in the days of apartheid. They have no longer been able to effectively guide the action of politics. Too many gaps to bridge. The death of Archbishop Desmond Tutu on St Stephens Day 2021, occasioned many reflections on his public witness, his prophetic leadership in the anti-apartheid…
Read moreThe EU’s plan of an oil embargo on Russia and to reduce its gas imports from this destination is offering opportunities to African oil and gas exporters. But only to a certain extent. Limited infrastructure prevents Africa to provide a complete alternative in the short-term. Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the EU…
Read moreSchools, female entrepreneurship, microcredit. These are some of the initiatives of the Oblates of Mary in this small African country. Cacine is a village of mud-brick houses, covered with metal sheets or palm leaves, built side by side along two dirt paths, where hens, goats, and pigs roam, and where children play. This small town…
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“We want to create a federation of international journalistic organisations that collaborate in this effort, starting from the global South,” says Filipino journalist and 2022…
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Once upon a time, there was a leopard. He had a huge walnut tree that was full of nuts. Stingy as he was, however, he forbade…
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Three young Comboni missionaries from three continents share their vocation stories and missionary experiences. Fr Victor Cunanan Parungao from the Philippines reflects on 15 years of…
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