Dzogbegan (Togo)

Benedictine monks of Dzogbégan, Togo

Project 3454 – Purchase of a minibus

The Dzogbégan monastery was founded in 1961 by the Abbey of En-Calcat (France). It became a priory in 1967 and an abbey in 1991. The community comprises thirty-eight brothers, including eight in the novitiate.

Right from the start of the foundation, the monks saw the need to build a dispensary to provide first aid to the villagers. They brought two nurses from France. As a result, infant mortality was greatly reduced.

To meet the needs of the local population, the monks set up an agricultural center, where young people from the surrounding villages come for training courses. This agricultural center was so successful that in 1968, the SORAD (Société Régionale Agricole de Développement) entrusted the monks with the development of twenty-five villages on the plateau.

The monastery has played, and continues to play, a significant role in development: coffee planters' cooperative, women's lemongrass planting group, jam and essential oil production, spice production; it offers training in beekeeping, reforestation, cow and egg rearing and aulacodes (African rodents).

Request

The brothers own a minibus, which is very useful as the monastery is located on a plateau, quite far from the towns. This vehicle is used to supply the community (the market is 23 km from the monastery), to drive down to Lomé once a month to sell the brothers' produce, to take the young brothers to internship training sessions, but also to take the sick treated in their dispensary to hospital, to supply the dispensary with medicines and other needs, and to collect the coffee produced by members of the cooperative managed by the brothers for the last twenty years.

The 13-year-old minibus is now causing them nothing but problems. Repairs are prohibitively expensive, and the engine overheats, making journeys increasingly uncertain. They urgently need to replace it with a new 15-seater Toyota Hiace 3L minibus, which will enable them to pursue the many activities that depend on this vehicle with greater peace of mind.

Financial assistance: 22 400 euros.

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