Good Morning, Midnight

A lot of children. Most of them neglected, with severe and profound physical or intellectual disabilities.
Lying down, on the ground… At Don Orione Center. In West Africa. Their new home of safety, where they’ll receive specialized and personalized care to try to improve their quality of life.

Children with disabilities (especially girls) are at high risk of physical, emotional, abandonment and sexual abuse. Their communities believe that their disabilities are a divine punishment, the result of their parents’ sins, an act of the devil, or that the child is a sorcerer. These minors are considered “supernatural”, “strangers” or “demons”. In some areas of Africa, children with cerebral palsy are known as “snakes”, as they lie on the ground. These kids are drowned in the river in rituals “so that the snake will go away”.
Meanwhile, here at the center, a group of children spend their long days of rehabilitation after complicated surgeries, anxiously awaiting their new orthopedic devices that will finally allow them to leave the “floor” and manage on their own without problems. A long-awaited starting line for the great race to a new life full of peace and hope…