“Living in Hope” was founded in 1999 by Marie-Stella Kouak, a catholic sister born in Dapaong (Togo) in 1967 who went to Belgium to attend a nursing school. A handful of volunteers joined her to assist those who suffered from AIDS, who were more and more numerous in the remote Savanes region of Northern Togo. As antiretroviral therapy wasn’t available in Togo until 2006, she spent her first years organizing funerals and trying to provide a dignified death to those who were treated as outcasts by the rest of the community.

Soon, the sister was faced with the dire issue of the remaining children with no one to care for them. This drove her to open a first orphanage called Saint-Augustin in 2004 and a bigger one in 2010. The latter, Sainte-Monique, hosts younger children of both sex and girls. The following photos tell the story of the life in Saint-Monique’s house, inside the wall of this house, kids with hard stories found a new family, Here, older girls take care of younger kids and become their «big sisters ». They take care of almost everything: cooking, dishwhashing, laundry, for them and their “little sibling”, not to mention school and homework. There is only one adult, Mama Rita, who is supervising them.

Besides the two orphanages, the association supports 1250 children living in foster families. It also runs a shop, a sewing workshop and a farm that generate income for the charity. In 2017, a new health center was inaugurated and more is planned for the coming months: a maternity hospital and a primary school. 

Marie-Stella’s priority is that “her sons and daughters” get a good education, a qualification and a stable life so that they won’t reproduce risky behaviors that would spread the disease and create new orphans.