Mama Africa and the lost children of the Congo

For the past 15 years, a middle-aged woman has taken care of dozens of boys and girls who have been abandoned, separated from their families or orphaned in the long-running war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. When she cannot find a family to host them, the children are welcome to stay at her house. Most of them are Congolese or Rwandan.

“Each time there is a war in Congo,” she says, “women get killed or raped, and many children are left on their own. They are homeless and live like vagrants. God has given me the gift to help children. There have been 158 to date. Everybody around here knows about me. People bring me every unaccompanied child they come across.”

With her own 12 children, she often loses count of her own grandchildren, but with all those she has helped over the years, those who know her agree that she rightfully deserves to be called “Mama Africa.”
To see a video concerning the plight of children the Congo’s lost and orphaned children go to http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/05/12/icrc.drc.congo.red.cross/index.html#cnnSTCVideo