On the second anniversary of the death (on 7 February 2020) of Mrs. Candida Pisù, a Camillian voluntary worker, Father Médard Aboué, paid tribute to this great lay missionary woman who for over thirty years dedicated herself totally to giving schooling to children in Benin, providing them with suitable care and implementing very many development projects for the local people:

Two years have passed since you left us, dear Candida, but I always very much remember you. You were little in height but your heart was great and I have always been fascinated by the limitless love that you had for the people of my land of Africa. You never accepted that a human being should remain in an eternal condition of poverty. Your profuse commitment to offering a future to the poor people of Benin and Togo had no limits. You tried, and your witness has always accompanied me because it  became for so many of us, your beloved children (the Camillian religious of the Province of Benin-Togo) a lighthouse.

I see you again, here in Italy, while you challenge your frail health, in the freezing cold of winter or the heat of summer, while you go up and down the roads of Turin, Imperia, Ormea and elsewhere to ask for solidarity for your children in Benin and Togo. For them no sacrifice was too great for you. You were a sure reference point for so many benefactors with whom for over thirty years you tried to implement the concept of ‘let’s help them in their homes’. For you, these words were not a slogan to exorcise the fear of the presence of foreigners in Italy. You went to them, ate with them, wept with them, you slept where they slept, and, in addition, you dressed like African women.  You also built a house in our land.

Even at the age of 88 you left Turin to spend, two, three, four, five, no six months in Africa. What is called African heat and our fearful malaria never diminished your joy at being amongst us. You loved Africa and above all you loved the children, men, women, young people and old people of Benin and Togo. You did everything to ensure that their conditions of life improved. With you, schools, wells and clinics were built; so many young people received economic support to study and/or be apprentices. Very many of them have become teachers, lawyer, nurses, policemen or professionals. They are almost all fathers or mothers of families who carry forward with pride your teaching. Some of your young people have become priests, men and women religious. To sum up: thanks to your untiring commitment all of this and a great deal more has been made possible.

And we Camillian religious of the Camillian Province of Benin-Togo continue, and will continue, your fine work in the land of Africa. Helping the poor, improving their conditions of life, fighting for justice, defeating the unjustifiable poverty that still torments so many people and offering hope for the future to children and young people here in Africa. We celebrated this year, as well, Christmas with children, as you did, and we continue to follow them to ensure they go regularly to school. With the help of benefactors and partner institutions, we continue to promote development initiatives in schools and villages. In a short time, we will build the hygiene services of the middle school in Ouessè.

Dear Candida, you left us a human, spiritual, moral and cultural heritage without equal. Continue to support us now that you live in eternity.

Thank you dear Candida. RIP.