Between the Walls
North of Togo, Dapaong. There, the Sainte Monique house hosts AIDS orphans. More exactly girls and young boys. The older boys live in another house, Saint Augustin. In Sainte Monique, the children live in a kind of "extended family" where they can find an evironment to rebuild themselves. Under the supervision of Maman Rita, the only adult present daily, the girls take care of everything : cooking, washing dishes, washing clothes, feeding the little ones, watching over them and playing with them too. All this while going to school and having their own homework to do… The orphanage is part of the association "Vivre dans l'Espérance" ("Living in Hope") which is developping in the region a large program around health and AIDS : food and medicine distribution, construction of a health center, taking care of orphans in the orphanage or in host families, awareness about the virus and the ways to protect from it, etc. It has been founded by Soeur Marie Stella, a sister from Togo.