Launched in October 2023 with the aim of strengthening the healthcare services offered by the Don Bosco Ngangi Centre (DBN), the project was created to remember Elisa Claps, the young woman from Potenza tragically killed in 1993, and to honor her dream of becoming a doctor and working in Africa alongside those most in need.
Over nearly three years, the project, carried out by the Salesian International Volunteering for Development (VIS) NGO, has adapted to the needs of the local population, maintaining the primary objective of ensuring ever-improving health services in a context where institutional healthcare is compromised and poorly accessible.
Thanks to the project, important milestones have been achieved:
• the rehabilitation of the DBN dispensary waiting room, which today bears Elisa’s name and provides free care to approximately 1,200 people per month, including displaced persons, orphaned or street children, and families in poverty;
• the strengthening of the analysis laboratory, thanks to the acquisition of three modern machines that have allowed us to expand the range of diagnostic tests from a few basic analyses to more than 40 types, serving over 3,200 patients;
• support for a nutritional assistant who cares for girls and boys suffering from malnutrition and a physiotherapist who provides specialised care to children with motor disabilities.
The project is now moving toward a further development opportunity: building a modular clinic to complement the dispensary and respond to the thousands of requests for help that arrive every day.
Elisa’s brother, Gildo Claps, recently visited the Democratic Republic of Congo with VIS workers, and with this new dream in his heart, he recounts: “In Goma, Gianmarco Saurino, Alberto Livoni (VIS humanitarian coordinator), and Gloria Paolucci (VIS Programs Department) were welcomed by dear Monica Corna, VIS country representative and project manager on the ground. Those were days I will carry with me for the rest of my life,” he testified.
The experience left him in no way indifferent: “In the heart of one of the most fragile lands on the planet, I felt my sister Elisa closer than ever. Because the medical dispensary, strengthened by the project dedicated to her, is alive today. It works. It heals. (…) And there I truly understood that Elisa’s dream hasn’t stopped, that she is here.”
This is why, with this new goal in mind, Gildo Claps concludes: “We hope that Elisa’s dream of becoming a doctor in Africa can materialise in an increasingly meaningful project for the people of this city.”
For further information visit: www.volint.it
