Africall.it has created an adoption system that differs from the most widely known. Those who wish to “adopt” agree to donate to a child symbolically: they will be given a name, but will never have any kind of relationship with the adopted child. This is a choice that Africall has deeply thought through to avoid a miss understanding of what “adopting a child from a distance” means to them.

From what I have seen with my own eyes, a connection of any kind between the adopted child and Italy, can have destructive outcomes. What the child, and who is physically taking care of the child need is support, not the dream of a new family overseas.

Medicines, soap, some money, a little prize for good marks at school are the support they are given. This support is not presented as a mere gift, but as an exchange. The adopted “families” receive support and thank back with a symbolic gift that can bee be: wood they have picked from the ground, a bucket of papayas or mangos that were picked from the nearby tree or a jar of rice, in sum, anything that is widely available to all.

The Mission also offers storage for food in the containers. In period of abundance, the locals will come to the mission and consign a certain amount of rice that is toasted and kept safe from bad weather and from waste. In period of shortage, the rice is given back to the people.

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