Supported organizations
Nutrition centres, schools and vocational training centres, dispensaries and hospitals: thanks to the child sponsorship donations, GMM’s benefactors support many initiatives mainly in favor of the youngest. You may find their brief descriptions here following.
House of Hope – Cotonou
The House of Hope (“Maison de l'Esperance”) is in Cotonou, in the Hindé neighborhood, near the Dantokpa Grand Marché. The House, built by the Salesian Sisters, is attended by approximatey 40 girls (and some boys too) who are given here the possibility to learn a job and prepare to enter the job market. The ouse helds cooking, pastry making, bakery and soap making courses, but also literacy and civic education courses, and recreation. The House has some dormitories that shelter the youngest and most vulnerable girls, protecting them during the night.
Foyer Laura Vicuña – Cotonou
The "Foyer Laura Vicuña" is in the Zogbo nighborhood, in Cotonou, the economic capital of Benin. It is a shelter and training centre for girls who have been victims of child trafficking ("vidomègon"). Here the Salesian Sisters shelter approximately 30 girls from 6 to 17 years old, who are taken care of while waiting for family reinsertion.
SOS Vidomegon Dantokpa – Cotonou
The "SOS Vidomegon" centre is at the Dantokpa Grand Marché, in Cotonou. It is a day-care and training centre girls working at the street market, who are given the possibility to attend courses when they are allowed to take a break from selling at the street market.
Centre de Formation Feminine Sociale – Bohicon
The "Centre de Formation Feminine Sociale" is in Bohicon, in the South of Benin. It shelters and trains approximately 80 girls and young women from 4 to 20 years old.
Centre de Santé Selome – Bohicon
The Bohicon “Centre de Santé Selome” is a pediatric health centre where children and teens are granted heath cares that they would never be given anywhere else.
Centre de Santé Saint Camille de Davougon – Abomey
The "Centre de Santé Saint Camille” is in Davougon, near Abomey (Southern Benin). It is specialized in the treatment of skin diseases (leper, Buruli ulcer) and AIDS. Nonetheless more than 40.000 patients affected by any different diseases attend the centre every year. The St. Camile offers also pediatric and nutrition services aimed at tens of mothers and children every day.
Petit Centre d’Accueil “Yvette” - Bouarou
The Petit Centre d’Accueil Yvette is in Bouarou, near Parakou, Northern Benin. It gives shelter and assistance to eight girls up to 12 years old, coming from the surrounding villages, who can thus attend the local school and be helped with their study.
Centre “Notre Dame du Refuge” - Komiguea
The “Notre Dame du Refuge” centre is in Komiguea, near Parakou, Northern Benin. Operators welcome and give assistance to under aged children from very young ages. The centre hosts approximately 30 children who attend the village school.
Orphanage "Sainte Therésé de l'Enfant-Jésus" - Tchatchou
The orphanage is in Tchatchou, in the Borgou region, Northern Benin. The “Petites servantes des pauvres” Sisters welcome, host and feed approximately 20 orphans or abandoned children up to 6 years old.
Hosting House "St. Teresa" - Tchaourou
The House hosts about 30 girls from 10 to 18 years old, orphans, abandoned, or escaper to an arranged marriage. The girls attend the village schools, at bouur 50km from Parakou, and are followed by the "Oblates chatéchistes petites servantes des pauvres" nuns in their educational training.
Centre “Sainte Marie” de Wénou – N'Dali diocese
The «Centre St. Marie de Wénou» is in Wénou o Ouenou, near N’Dali, Northern Benin. Father Pio’s Franciscan Sisters run a boarding school, a nutrition centre, a kindergarden and a primary school. They host approximately 40 kids from 5 to 16 years old.
“Sainte Marie” dispensary - Fo Bouré
The “Sainte Marie” dispensary is in Fo Bouré, in the Borgou region, Northern Benin. The sisters welcome and feed children and teens up to 15 years old, and carry out health education programs in the villages. The Centre hosts approximately 20 children (with their mothers).
Centre de Formation Feminine Sociale “Yenu Geo” – Bemberekè
The “Yenu Geo” in Bemberekè, Northern Benin, N'Dali diocese, holds vocational training courses to approximately 80 girls. Next to the centre, the ‘Marie Adelaide’ school complex was also opened with a kindergarten attended by 70 children, a primary school with 300 schoolchildren, 250 of whom are internal, and a primary school with 180 pupils, 150 of whom are internal.
Peulh Mission - Bagou
At the Peulh Mission in Bagou (North Benin) there is a home for abandoned boys and girls. About 35 boys and girls up to the age of 18 receive care there.
Orphanage “des Saints Innocents” – Natitingou
The orphanage “des Saints Innocents” is in Natitingou, Northern Benin. It is a shelter and nutrition centre for approximately 90 children and teens from 0 to 18 years old.
Boarding primary school “Marie-Adèle” – Kossou
The “Ecole primaire catholique Marie-Adèle" in Koussoucoingou (Atacora, Northern Benin), comprises a boys‘ boarding school (55 children) and a girls’ boarding school (30) as well as a primary school for about 120 children aged 5 to 12. The school complex is 35 km far from Natitngou city.
“St. Pierre” Seminary – Natitingou
The “St. Pierre” Seminary in Ourbona, near Natitingou (Atacora, Northern Benin), is a minor Seminary that provides junior high and high education to approximately 90 kids from 12 and 18 years old.
Kekeli Neva Insitute for blind– Togoville
The “Kekeli Neva" (“Come the light”) Institute is in Togoville, in the South of Togo. It is an institute for for blind boys and girls who are given here basic education and carry out handcraft and agricultural works. It hosts approximately 40 boys and girls, from 5 and 25 years old. It has been founded by a Combonian missionary coming from Trentino region, who was blind himself.
Mère Marie de Jésus’ Orphanage in Segbana
Segbana (Benin) is a rural village close to the border with Nigeria and it is home to many refugees from that country escaping a conflict situation due to attacks by Islamic extremist groups. Many children, often as soon as they are born, are abandoned and the luckier ones are brought by the Ocpsp Sisters (Oblate Catechist Little Servants of the Poor) who take them in at the orphanage. Many children are also orphaned by the death of their mothers during or after childbirth due to the almost complete lack of health and maternity centres in the area. At present, the facility accommodates about thirty boys and girls from 0 to 12 years of age. Once they have reached school age, the minors not yet adopted are sent to the Ocpsp reception centres located in larger villages far from the Nigerian border.
Oasis d'Amour in Bohicon
The care centre for mental illnesses is run by the ‘St. Camillo de Lellis’ association founded by Gregoire Ahongbonon. GMM supports the centre by financing the purchase of bread and medicines to care for the more than two hundred patients received.