The Sisters in Madagascar shared Jeanne’s Story – a story about a girl among the children who are mentally disabled and are accommodated at the St. Vincent DePaul Special Education Center in Manakara, Madagascar.

Jeanne is a girl removed from her family. In fact, we do not know who here parents were. Jeanne was rescued by a foreign couple from a garbage dump in Antananarivo – the capital city of Madagascar – where she was living for three years. Jeanne was entrusted to a mother of a family, a native of Manakara, who was being cared for at the military hospital in Antananarivo at that time. This woman knew about the existence of the Specialized Education Center in Manakara and she brought Jeanne there. The foreign couple took responsibility to help with Jeanne’s survival: her care and education until the age of 14. After that time, the benefactor couple and also the mother no longer supported Jeanne, so she became an orphan for a second time.

So St. Vincent de Paul Special Education Center has supported Jeanne since then, and she has learned pottery to prepare herself for her future. Currently at 24 years old, Jeanne is able to maintain her house, prepare her meals, wash her linens – she manages her responsibilities. Of course, she is not financially self-supporting.  So she can live comfortably, the Center recruited Jeanne as an assistant for teaching pottery and gives her money for her needs.  Jeanne received training and education and now helps others.

Source: Daughters of Charity International Project Services, http://www.daughtersips.org/