History
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1953 - 1971
Lotti and Aziz
Liselotte Latrous-Hausmann was born on 19th May 1953 at the district hospital of Dielsdorf in Switzerland. She is the eldest of three siblings. At the age of 16, she went to Geneva as an au pair, where she met her future husband, Aziz Latrous. This love kept her in Geneva, where she took up a position as a nursing assistant at the Clinique Générale.
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1971 - 1994
Starting a family
Following their marriage in 1972, Aziz found a position at Nestlé and began an international career. Their first son, Selim, was born in 1979 in Vevey. The family then settled in Saudi Arabia, where their daughter Sonia was born 15 months later. They lived there for five years before relocating to Nigeria, where their third child, Sarah, was born in 1989.
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1994 - 1998
Where it all began
In 1994, Aziz was posted to Côte d'Ivoire. There, Lotti began her voluntary work with the Missionary Sisters of Charity – a commitment that would profoundly change her life. Coming from a privileged background as the wife of a senior executive, she suddenly found herself confronted with suffering, illness, death and abandonment. Thousands of people, including many children, were dying of AIDS. Lotti devoted her heart and all her strength to these stigmatised and neglected patients, striving to bring them dignity, care and compassion. In the deprived neighbourhoods of Adjouffou, she witnessed immense poverty and social injustice: she found gravely ill, emaciated and abandoned people, most of them lying on the bare earth floors of their mud huts, ravaged by fever and misery. She decided to provide help in these neighbourhoods.
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1998
The first Centre
The municipality of Port-Bouët made available a plot of 500 square metres on which, with the support of her husband, she built a modest medical day clinic in the slum of Adjouffou. Three converted shipping containers served as a consultation room and a social office, with space for four beds, toilets and washrooms. In front of them was a covered area. A small team of 5 people was put together, consisting of a doctor, a nursing assistant, a pharmacy assistant, a cleaner and Lotti herself. The clinic opened its doors to the slum residents on 1 February 1998.
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2002
Centre Espoir d’Eux - The hospice
As effective AIDS treatments were not yet available at the time, most patients came simply to die. The scale of suffering made it clear that a specialist facility for end-of-life care was needed. Furthermore, many people were afraid and reluctant to come to a clinic where the hearse arrived almost daily. So in 2002 a hospice with 30 beds was built, the Centre Espoir d'Eux ("Their Hope"), where dying people could be accompanied into death with dignity.
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2007
The Children's Home
Many mothers passed away, leaving behind infected children who also required protection and care. The orphanage was therefore opened in 2007, taking in nearly 50 children and continuing to offer a new home to others ever since.
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2017
The relocation
After eighteen years in Adjouffou, and with growing access to medical treatments, many patients – particularly children – could be saved. In 2017, the project was relocated to Grand-Bassam due to the planned expansion of Abidjan airport, as the government intended to demolish the adjacent slums. Lotti and Aziz set about finding a new location for their centres. After extensive research, a plot of 5,000 m² was found and acquired in 2015 in Grand-Bassam, approximately 20 kilometres away. After a planning and construction period of just 18 months under the direction of Aziz, the entire Centre l'Espoir was reopened in Grand-Bassam – all the patients, all the children and the entire staff relocated together.
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2020
Village AYOBÂ L'Espoir
The project's grounds were subsequently extended to a total of 7,500 m² and in December 2020, Lotti opened her most cherished project: the small village "Village AYOBÂ L'Espoir" (meaning roughly "Good Day, Hope"). It was created on the adjacent plot of land, which had previously served as a rubbish tip. This intergenerational village offers a dignified home to elderly, ill and disabled people, with thirteen small houses, a communal kitchen, and prayer rooms for Christians and Muslims alike. The children from the orphanage visit regularly – and have found their grandparents there.
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2025
Lotti is retiring
Lotti retired in June 2025 at the age of 72. She remains connected to the project as an adviser and travels to Africa several times a year with her husband Aziz to visit her extended family. When not in Africa, she spends time with her children and grandchildren. She is deeply grateful and fulfilled to have been able to bring this extraordinary humanitarian project to life with the support of so many people of goodwill, and to know that it is now in trusted hands.