Welcome to the Family Elsie!

This is Elsie Matondo. She is six years old.  She is the newest member to join our family here at Casa Cittadini.  You may see her now looking happy and delighting us with her sweet smiles showing all the joy and happiness within her, but Elsie's life had not always been like this.  She opened her eyes to a life that was filled with nothing but harship.

She was born in Manila and has two brothers and a baby sister.  Her mother abandoned them and left them in the care of their father.  It was said that the father had sold their baby sister to a childless couple inorder to have money to buy ship tickets for Negros Oriental.

The family came to Malabo, Valencia, Negros Oriental.  There, they were taken in by relatives and given a place to stay.  Elsie's father worked as a farmer and abaca pulp gatherer to support the family, however, the distance of the farm from their home meant that he had to leave the children to their own devices, often for an entire week.

The children were looked after by kindly neighbors.  But they could not be given full care and attention as the neighbors also had their own families and children to attend to. 

Life had been hard for Elsie.  They often had to go hungry.  She had not been to school.   At her tender age, she learned to cook and look after her little brother.  They often went on for days wearing the same unwashed clothes and with their father away from them, they slept in their filthy shanty totally unprotected and unaccompanied by an adult.

But all that is behind Elsie now.  We are happy that she is now living a better life, eating three full nutritious meals a day, has her very own, clean bed to sleep in, and she now goes to school too!

Elsie and some of our other girls in their Sunday best

 Home at last!