The Fondazione InSé Onlus has always been very sensitive towards solidarity, especially in Africa, where it has developed a strong knowledge base of the continent's culture and challenges. The foundation has decided to concentrate its efforts in one single direction: support of the Pediatric Hospital of Kimbondo and the community that has been built around it. This can be achieved by accompanying this community through a stepwise journey towards being fully autonomous.

 

The story of Kimbondo started off at the Pediatric Hospital, which was founded at the end of the 1980's by the doctors father Hugo Rios and Laura Perna. Its principal aim is to provide medical assistance to street children and children being abandoned due to the "Ndoki believe" (children possessed by demons). Today the hospital accommodates more than 800 children and, with the help of four Congolese doctors, any illness that does not need surgery cured locally. But above all, the hospital has become a mediacal institution where the the poorest individuals in the greater Kinshasa area are treated at no cost.

 

Over the course of the years a lot has been accomplished: within this first, established nucleus of solidarity further institutions were created in order to enable this little community to pursue their own growth path and to imagine their future. Firstly, a school was built with classes for children but also with professional programs in order to direct the youn adults of the community towards economic independence. Secondly, "House Betty" was established to accommodate young women and is especially tailored towards the needs of abandoned mothers. And thirdly, "House Patrick" opened its doors to give a home to the "special" children who could not live on their own.

 

Now this collaboration is about to engage in a new endeavor. Kinta is the name of this project in which sustainable agricultural activity is to be developed in order to supply nutrition for the little inhabitants of the hospital as well as to provide a job opportunity and some economic independance for the members of the community.

 

It is exactly this sort of autonomy that the projects of the Fondazione InSé Onlus aim for. This is ideally achieved through the joint work of "Hub for Kimbondo", an "Association composed by various associations" of which the Fondazione InSé Onlus is member together with A.g.a.p.e. Onlus, AMIS onlus, Annulliamo la distanza, A.s.p.r.u. Risvegli Onlus, Campioni del Cuore Onlus, Caritas Diocesana - Diocesi di Siena, Fondazione Emilio Bernardelli, Fondazione Ponzellini, Fondazione Rita Levi-Montalcini, Jasedo Onlus, La terrazza per l’Infanzia Onlus, Un mondo di amici Onlus.

 

Since a few years the great social value of the projects implemented in Kimbondo has also been recognized by receiving the patronage of Rai's "Segretariato Sociale" as well as of Mediafriends and of La7. These provide a very important platform to explain to a broad public the challenges faced in this community and to raise funds with the help of "sms unico".