Mali: report 2006

March 2006: Good news, little Alhousseina who was admitted to hospital at the end of February weighing 1.9kg at the age of nine months , has done well and has been able to leave hospital. She has been put under the care of the orphan aid programme.

The distributions continue every Thursday. We have to analyse each situation as many references given by the neighbourhood chief are unreliable. This puts us in a difficult position with regard to the children and is irritating. The necessary research takes some time as there are nine neighbourhoods of which Château is the biggest.

Sophie has received an invitation from the Procurator General of the Court of Appeal at Mopti.to participate during the three weeks of the Assizes She will assist with cases concerning children, particularly rape, infanticide and paedophilia. Many of the cases are very disturbing. We take a child into the care of the orphan programme, born to an unknown father and miraculously saved. The child's mother was thirteen years old at the time and desperate. On the birth of the child, she threw her baby away in the latrines. Sophie will follow up with the child and provide a psychological guide for the mother who is now fifteen years old.

March has been very difficult and full of painful events. Poverty and a lack of education are responsible for certain behaviours which demonstrate a total lack of respect for the dignity of the individual. We must remind ourselves that our vocation is not to judge but to understand and seek a solution to these problems.

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Nine month old twins. The little girl weighs just 1.9kg