Angola: Agreement signed between the community of Sant’Egidio and the Congregation of Teresa Sisters for the implementation of DREAM
Over the last few days the ceremony for the signing of agreement between the Community of Sant’Egidio and the Congregation of Teresa Missionary Sisters took place at the community’s offices in Rome. The signing of the agreement to implement DREAM in Angola is the result of two years of discussion and negotiation, of visits to the area, of staff training and collecting of funds.
Angola, just a few years after the conclusion of the civil war which devastated the country, is going through a serious economic and social crisis, despite the enormous source of natural riches that lies beneath the country’s surface. Moreover, AIDS continues to attack the active population, thus obstructing the implementation of reconstruction that the country so badly needs.
The meeting in Rome with the Community of Sant’Egidio convinced those managing the Congregation that it was possible to put into effect a concrete and efficient action plan to stem the epidemic and give back the hope and human resources needed to get the country back on its feet. The following visit to the DREAM centre in Mozambique carried out by the health staff working with the Teresa Sisters reinforced that conviction.
With the aim of opening a DREAM centre also in Angola, doctors, laboratory technicians and nurses from the hospital of Cubal in the south of the country participated in specialist courses run over the last two years in Mozambique.
The hospital in Cubal is already an effective structure, having operated for years in the specialist cure of patients with tuberculosis and children with malnutrition. Recently it has obtained the authorization from the Ministry of Health in Angola to operate as an AIDS treatment centre.
Our hope is that Cubal also becomes a pilot centre for the treatment of HIV, a point of reference for those who want to participate in the dream of resurrecting Africa.