Andiamo Youth Cooperative Trust Malawi

There was a father, mother and their children and a grandfather. This grandfather got his face dirty when he ate soup, which annoyed the father so he bought a separate table for the grandfather to eat at. But one day the father returned home and saw one of his children playing with bits of wood and on asking his son what he was doing was told that he was building a table for Daddy to eat at when he became old.

The above is a story that Pope Francis told the gathering on Tuesday, 19 November 2013 in Rome to illustrate “our treatment” to old people. The Pope went on to say that a society that does not take care for and respect the elderly does not have a future because it doesn’t have memories. We would do well, he continued, to spare a thought for the many old people living in homes for the aged and, it’s unpleasant to say, for those who have been abandoned by their families. They are the treasure of our society.

The Pope was saying this in Rome, of course for all the Catholics. In fact some could say this is not possible. “Let the elderly care for themselves” but Gertrude Naluso, Deputy bandleader of Alleluya band has shown us that it is possible to live by what Pope Francis is preaching.

Through the little allowances that she got from the just ended International Italian tour, Gertrude is renovating and extending the house of her granny, who took care of her when she was young. Gertrude Naluso lost her mother when she was very young.

In the pictures below, we show you the renovations of the old house that Gertrude is doing for her grand mother.

Behind the extension block

This is part of the extension of the old house

The house being renovated

By P.K.B