GSI ITALIA FOR THE STREET CHILDREN OF KINSHASA IN THE CONGO

GSI Italia continues its commitment to helping street children in Kinshasa, the Congolese metropolis of over 10 million inhabitants in sub-Saharan Africa.
Having built, just a few years ago, a shelter for street girls in the ‘commune of Tsangu’, the densely populated shanty town near the Congolese capital’s international airport, GSI Italia returns to Kinshasa with a programme to help street children and young people.
Once again, the partner is the Oseper organisation, part of Don Guanella, the Italian congregation dedicated to serving abandoned children and those with physical and mental disabilities.
From the Oseper village, every evening for many years now, at 10 pm, two ambulances – donated to the Congolese association by GSI Italia – set off to provide night-time assistance to boys and girls in distress on the streets of the capital. One of the two ambulances was donated by the Croce Bianca di Foligno.
A year ago, the environmental journalist Francesco De Augustinis, who follows GSI Italia’s work in Africa, outlined the organisation’s activities for the Italian press, tracing the routes of the association’s interventions in the capital and in the South Ubangi region, in the north of the country.

Today’s initiative, led by the Terni-based association Lo Scoiattolo, which specialises in international adoptions, was funded by GSI Italia through the Commission for International Adoptions (CAI), the Italian central authority for international adoptions, established under the Hague Convention of 29 May 1993 on the Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption.
GSI’s programme for 2026, starting in May and lasting one year, involves providing food aid for the children, paying their school fees, and training Oseper community workers: educators, nurses, social workers and psychologists.
The children live on the streets for a variety of reasons: orphanhood, having been disowned for witchcraft, or because their families – very often single-parent households – are unable to support them. In many cases, the children have no legal identity, as they were never registered at birth.
The project will also work towards securing legal recognition for these children, an essential prerequisite for them to finally become Congolese citizens.