2 December 18.15 | Via della Maddalena 53, Rome

The NGO Health and Development

Invites you to the

Meeting with the Camillian Father Bernard Kinvi who is visiting Rome after receiving the prestigious ‘Alison Des Forges Award’ of  Human Rights Watch for saving hundreds of refugees during the war in the Central African Republic.

Chairman Father Efisio Locci –  the President of the NGO ‘Health and Development’

Father Bernard Kinvi is a father of the Order of St. Camillus and is the director of the John Paul II Hospital of Bossemptélé. He has worked in the Central African Republic since 2008. During the war this hospital, the parish Church and the adjacent school of the Carmelite sisters have taken in and saved hundreds of refugees who fleeing from the war. The civil war which has afflicted the country since December 2012 has two opposing factions: the ‘Seleka’, which is Muslim, and the ‘anti-Balaka’, which is Christian. The hospital, which is 360 kilometres from the capital and 200 kilometres from electric light, became the refuge for this people of fleeing women and children and a centre for the wounded of both factions. Father Bernard has been the organiser of the aid and a tireless provider of care for everyone. Because of his tenacious courage and for saving the lives of five hundred refugees, Father Bernard has received the prestigious ‘Alison Des Forges Award’ and has been invited by Human Rights Watch to hold a series of meetings in London, Geneva and Paris.

The NGO ‘Health and Development’, which works with and supports the John Paul II Hospital of Bossemptélé, has also invited Father Bernard to hold a meeting in Rome in order to inform and sensitise Italian public opinion as regards the current situation in the Central African Republic and the valuable work of the workers of the hospital of Bossemptélé who during the course of the year 2013 helped about 7,000 people.

‘Health and Development’ is an NGO with its headquarters in Rome and it was founded to support the world of the Camillians and to work at their side in over forty countries. In 2010 ‘Health and Development’ promoted the launching and then the actual provision of a number of hospital services at the John Paul II Hospital of Bossemptélé in the Central African Republic. After the beginning of the work of the hospital, ‘Health and Development’, through a strategic plan named ‘Mother Child Centre’, supported health-care initiatives for women and children and is at the present time involved in the creation of a house for medical doctors and volunteers involved in the project. In 2015 this NGO will seek to create a surgery department with beds.

The projects promoted by ‘Health and Development’ in the Central African Republic have been implemented with the contribution of Fondation Assistance International (FAI) – the Italian Bishops’ Conference (CEI)-  the Chiesi Foundation – and the Prosolidar Foundation.

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