Flame of Love Orphanage

Benin

By SiteAdmin 12/5/2023 12:00:00 PM

Flame of Love Orphanage
with Bernadette Ehouinsou
Benin

In 2008, Bernadette Ehouinsou named her orphanage Flamme d'Amour. We didn't know this until recently, when we got to know her son, Father Gilles Hervé VISSOUKPO, who was ordained a priest in 2012. Stéphanie Dessaint, who coordinates the prayer group in France, had asked Father Gilles to take care of the Flame of Love Movement in France and he accept.

Here's a brief history of the Flamme d'Amour's orphanage mission in Benin.

In the Republic of Benin, as in most sub-Saharan African countries, there is the phenomenon of "street children". These children come from extremely poor families who abandon them at an early age for lack of financial means. In villages and hamlets, some women give birth at home, as they don't have the money to pay for a health center or maternity ward. Still others give birth in maternity wards and abandon their babies at night, either because they are unable to pay the maternity fees or simply because they feel abandoned by those responsible for their pregnancies and fear being left alone to look after their babies.In the Republic of Benin, as in most sub-Saharan African countries, there is the phenomenon of "street children". These children come from extremely poor families who abandon them at an early age for lack of financial means. In villages and hamlets, some women give birth at home, as they don't have the money to pay for a health center or maternity ward. Still others give birth in maternity wards and abandon their babies at night, either because they are unable to pay the maternity fees or simply because they feel abandoned by those responsible for their pregnancies and fear being left alone to look after their babies.

Having worked as a nurse and midwife for some forty years, Bernadette Ehouinsou has known and dealt with the tragedy of abandoned babies throughout her career. She finds herself with abandoned babies and takes them home.

In addition, there has been the thorny problem of HIV/AIDS, which has decimated many parents, leaving hundreds and thousands of children orphaned. As a health worker, Bernadette has also managed many cases and recovered many orphans who have fallen victim to this pandemic.

There are more extreme cases: babies thrown away by their mothers in rubbish bags or in public markets, because the mothers are mostly teenage girls or students who have no way of looking after these children.

Her priest son, Father Hervé, began working with her in 2011, as he saw his mother's financial possibilities dwindling due to her retirement. So he began to take this project outside the family framework and to spread the word to his friends and acquaintances outside the family.

Together, over the past twenty years, we have been able to recover and educate 822 children (boys and girls) from 0 months to 16 years of age. After obtaining their BEPC or Baccalauréat, we guide them towards

vocational training in trades such as masonry, carpentry, catering, dressmaking, petty trading and so on. As higher education is very expensive and requires children to travel from the villages to the capital, it's difficult for us to commit to it. However, we continue to support those who really excel in their studies and want to go to university. We currently have 4 who are specializing in social work, hotel management and fashion design.

As of today, we have 24 children in our care, including 18 girls and 6 boys in 6 families, as we don't have enough rooms to house so many children. Bernadette's family home has been the setting for this orphanage for decades, and 8 children live there permanently. All the other children come here every first Sunday of the month and on public holidays. It should be pointed out that the 24 children are actually those directly dependent on the orphanage. Otherwise, there are many other orphans whose families introduce them to us, and to whom we offer help without being able to commit ourselves fully because of our limited means. During the Christmas holidays, we sometimes rent out community halls or school classrooms, depending on our means, to bring together a large number of orphans and offer them a festive meal.

The Bernadette's dream is to one day be able to keep all the orphans in this house. As the house is on the first floor and can be extended by one or two storeys, the number of rooms could be increased in the future, resources permitting. In addition, there is an empty fenced-in estate immediately adjacent to the house. If we can acquire this estate and build a proper orphanage there, it will be to everyone's great satisfaction. The project, which began 40 years ago, continues to move forward at the whim of Divine Providence.

The orphanage is located in the heart of the historic town of Abomey, in southern Benin, in the Djimè district, home to King Behanzin. This district is home to a tourist site that traces the history of the former Dahomey, now Benin.

While we await the realization of this dream of putting all the children in the same living environment, so as to provide them with the best possible care, our ordinary needs include:

1) Food (the most difficult to provide). Feeding the children for a whole year is a real challenge, especially in this country where poverty is reaching alarming proportions. We need cereals: corn, rice, beans; pasta: spaghetti, macaroni, couscous; tomatoes and tins. On holidays (Christmas, Easter, Pentecost and others), all the children gather at Mom's to share a good meal.

2) Medical care: the children often fall ill: fever, malaria, stomach aches, headaches and so on. We need medicine to treat them.

3) Clothes: the children lack clothes; they need them for home, school, church, holidays, etc. We need to provide them with the clothes they need.

4) Financial resources: we sometimes run out of money to pay for our children's schooling. School is expensive: school fees, supplies (notebooks, books, pens, pencils, etc.) and home

tutoring by certain teachers to bring children who are struggling up to speed up their studies. We make a financial contribution to families who have agreed to look after the children we have placed in their homes. It's a shared mission, but there are times when they need our encouragement.

We look forward to welcoming you, getting to know you and showing you first-hand the realities of the area. You're going to have a lot of fun with these innocent, happy children!

Viviane Adahê
Graduate in public health
Water, hygiene and sanitation technician
Children's educator

The Movement in Canada are not suppose to send donation out of Canada. The people who want to help the Orphenage can do it by their own.

We can send the addres where you can send the donation.