Being children again, if only for a few hours
Rossana Berini shares what it meant to spend a few days as a volunteer at our Talibé Children’s Home in Saint-Louis, Senegal.
There is something that cannot be bought: time gone by, the carefree joy of being a child, the freedom of not having to think about how to live or how to survive, of always finding arms to run to for comfort.
And yet, we can give a little of all that to those who have been denied it. To children who have become adults far, far too soon, who have grown up without being able to remember the feeling that only a mother’s embrace can give.
Being a volunteer with this project of Asha-Kiran and Maison des Talibés meant, for me, giving them the chance to be children again. To forget the outside world for a few hours, to recover their smiles, and to find in the eyes of those around them a tenderness they may never have known.
Spending a few days with them also became a personal redemption in the face of an unjust adult world.
I had the privilege of bringing smiles. Some appeared between a bandage and a little Betadine; others simply through bottle caps and paper cups.
And perhaps that is what I will carry with me: discovering how much can happen when we are truly there, available, sharing our time.
Rossana Berini
Italian living in Mauritania
Volunteer at the Talibé Children’s Home.
Would you like to share your time with them too?
You can join Fundación Asha-Kiran’s volunteer programme in Senegal. Write to us. You can also become an Asha-Kiran member.