Education is the best weapon against superstition
Since the beginning of our adventure, at WN we developed a specific project of education for the local communities.
We are in fact conscious that the plague of the so-called witch children will never be defeated if we don't work on its source: superstition.
To go and educate adults who live in conditions of extreme poverty and ignorance is, for some aspects, even more challenging than to rescue the children.
In the beginning, people did not want us among them because they thought we were witches too.
People do not want us among them and do not understand why we take care of those children that they blame for witchcraft.
But here is what we did in the past and plan to do more in the future. Go into the villages, we gather people around us, and we patiently talk about superstition, making them see how it delays progress in Africa.
We tell them the story of the children almost killed because of this stigma and show them how now, under our care, they are extremely brilliant in school.
We make them understand that, in the future, these children will shame those who branded them as a curse and made them lose even the love of their families.
These arguments may seem simple, but the truth is that people never heard them, and want to know and learn.
Slowly we gained their trust and today they welcome us in most places we visit; People recommend us when they hear of stigmatization cases; Local authorities, such as family judges, have recognised us as the most reliable organization in the country.
Our work is also with the community leaders, chiefs of tribes, religious leaders, authorities, and politicians.
With them our work consists mainly in holding educational meetings, exemplifying how things like this happened in Europe 500 years ago and how things changed. We challenge false and twisted teachings "from the Bible", that are used to put children to death.
Even if it is not evident, this kind of work in the field requires a lot of resources, both human and economic.
We need to prepare our staff members to do it, if we cannot be there in person from Europe, and we need to prepare educational tools. We call on your sensitivity to help!
