Elisabeth Norgall Award 2009: Lotti Latrous (CH)

Our Norgall prize winner this year Frau Lotti Latrous has for many years chosen a life in the slums rather than that in a villa. Born in Dielsdorf in Switzerland, she moved to Geneva at the age of 16, to train as a nurse. However, things happened differently from her original plans. In Geneva she met her future husband, Aziz Latrous, a Tunisian, the love of her life. After his studies they got married and had 3 children. On account of his work with the company Nestlé the family moved from Jeddah in Saudi Arabia via Nigeria and Egypt to Abidjan, the business centre of the Ivory Coast.

In Abidjan life as a foreigner as well as being a woman was comfortable but not simple. Her husband was working a lot, her children were in school the whole day. She then began to work in the Aids hospital “Mother Teresa”. The misery there with which she, the privileged lady with a driver, cook and swimming pool, was confronted, caused her to build in Adjouffou, one of the most wretched areas in Abidjan, an out-patients’ clinic with the full support of her husband. The out-patients’ clinic, „Centre Espoir Un“, had only just opened in February 1999 when Nestlé transferred the family back to Cairo. Because Lotti Latrous wished to carry on supervising the clinic, she made a deal with her family – one month in Cairo and two months in Abidjan. However she soon discovered that on a long term basis it was extremely difficult to take care of the out-patients’ clinic in the slums and at the same time her family in Cairo. Lotti Latrous decided to support those in need of help in Abidjan – a decision which badly affected the family but which did not break it up.

She opened the second project, a hospice for those suffering from Aids in September 2002 also in Adjouffou. She called it “Centre Espoir d’Eux” – a word play on “Deux” French for 2 and “d’Eux” for them. In the hospice those suffering from Aids and special patients can be treated and die with dignity. At the moment there are on average 60 patients in the hospice, adults as well as children.

Despite the continuing political unrest Lotti Latrous was able to bring into being her third project on the Ivory Coast, an orphanage “Centre Espoir Trois”. It was opened in February 2006 and has 50 places for HIV positive, orphaned children.

With these 3 centres Lotti Latrous has created about 50 jobs. She is the only person with white skin in the area and also the only one without an income.

For more than 10 years Lotti Latrous has worked and fought on her own initiative selflessly and regardless of any personal consequences against Aids, malnutrition, tuberculosis, diarrhoea, malaria and other different illnesses under the most difficult conditions. If you would like to know more about our Norgall Prize Winner 2009 and her work, then you should definitely attend the Prize Award Ceremony on 4th March 2009.

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