Fr Francis Preston SDB writes from Nairobi about a recent visit to to a home for little ones.

On the other side of the main road to Don Bosco Utume, the Salesian community residence and study centre where I am staying in Nairobi, the Cottolengo Sisters have a home for babies and young children. The Cottolengo Sisters were founded by St Joseph Cottolengo in the first half of the 19th century to work in the "Little House of Divine Providence", a home and refuge for the most abandoned members of society - the sick, the severely disabled, the elderly - that the Saint opened in the Valdocco district of Turin.

As young priest Don Bosco visited the Little House to minister to the residents. The Oratory and the Church of Mary Help of Christians that Don Bosco established in Valdocco are just a few hundred yards away from Cottolengo's Little House.

I paid my first visit to children's home at the invitation of the Sisters a couple of weeks ago. The photo above was taken in the Little Angels Unit. I am holding John and Jane, six month old twins. Their mother died of sepsis when they were seven days old. Their grandmother tried to care for them but the task proved too much for her, and so the twins were entrusted to the care of the Sisters.

The youngest baby in the Unit was born just before Easter. His mother is HIV positive and mentally very unstable and therefore unable to care adequately for him. In fact, a significant number of the 80 children the Sisters are caring for are HIV positive. Looking after them is quite a challenge, but I was greatly impressed by the wonderful work that the Sisters and the volunteers who help them are doing. St Joseph Cottolengo would be proud of them!

Fr Francis Preston SDB