The cause · Missioni

Every profit, sent to Africa

Omnia gives all of its profit from the Sant'Anna range in the Omnia store to the Carmelite missions in the Central African Republic, one of the least developed countries in the world. This is why, and where it goes.

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Why we do it

The purchase is the donation

Omnia began as a clinic, not a shop. Our work is to care for people as a whole, body and mind, which is exactly how the friars of Sant'Anna have described their own work for nearly four hundred years.

Our connection with the friars and their missions is not new. It goes back many years, long before their preparations reached the Omnia store.

Those missions are a small community of Carmelites from Genoa who have lived in the Central African Republic since 1971, running schools, dispensaries and farms, digging wells and, in the hardest years, sheltering thousands of people behind their walls.

Bringing the friars' preparations to London is a way of widening that support. So the profit goes back to their work, all of it.

When you choose a bar of soap or a gift set from the Omnia store, you are not adding a donation to a purchase. The purchase is the donation.

With gratitude, the Omnia teamOmnia Lifestyle, Chiswick

Rows of lavender in flower on a hillside

A hand brushing through lavender flowers

A traditional copper still among lavender plants

Sister Caterina bottling lavender essence in the Arenzano workshop

A mother and child outside their home in the Central African Republic

Children gathered outside a mission building in the Central African Republic

Children at their desks in a mission school classroom

Smiling schoolchildren at a Carmelite mission in the Central African Republic

01From the field to the mission

It begins in a lavender field in the hills of Liguria.Arenzano, near Genoa

Every July, the flowers are picked entirely by hand.The harvest

About 200 kilos of fresh flowers make one kilo of essence.Lavandula angustifolia

Steam distilled in traditional stills, with nothing added, as it has been since 1977.The distillation

In the friars' small workshop at Arenzano, Sister Caterina bottles every batch.The bottling

The proceeds travel south, to the Central African Republic.About 4,300 kilometres

Since 1971 the friars have crossed the savannah to reach villages in one of the poorest countries in the world.The missions

That support helps to fund some 30 schools, medical care, and meals for families with nothing to eat.Schools, clinics, food

One small bottle at Omnia, a whole story of care behind it.The lavender shelf Why it matters

IThe need

Why the Central African Republic

191of 193: the country's place in the United Nations Human Development Index
57years: life expectancy at birth, among the lowest in the world
2.3million: people in need of humanitarian aid, about a third of the population

Years of conflict have left much of the country without schools, clinics or clean water. Around Bozoum, in the north-west, the water table lies about seventy metres below ground, and women can walk seven or eight kilometres to fetch water.

IIThe journey

About 4,300 kilometres of care

i
GenoaThe friars prepare their remedies on the hill of Sant'Anna, as they have since 1650.
ii
ArenzanoThe mission office at the Sanctuary of the Infant Jesus of Prague distils lavender and sends containers of aid south each year.
iii
ChiswickWe bring the preparations to London and send every pound of profit to the missions.
iv
Central African RepublicSchools, dispensaries, wells, farms and a seminary across the north-west and in Bangui.

IIISince 1971

Fifty-five years beside the people

On 16 December 1971 four Carmelites from Genoa, Fathers Nicolò Ellena, Marco Conte, Carlo Cencio and Agostino Mazzocchi, arrived in Bozoum to take over a mission from the Capuchins. Today the friars work across the north-west of the country and in the capital, Bangui.

Since 1971

Bozoum

The parish of St Michael, founded in 1927, is the oldest mission in the diocese of Bouar. The friars run a nursery, an orphanage, a primary school and a lycée, and one of them travels out to more than thirty villages across the savannah. For many families, in the friars' words, the parish is often the only safe point of reference.

1,000+children in the mission's nursery, orphanage and schools
67farmers' groups at the 2026 Bozoum agricultural fair, begun by the mission in 2004

BozoumNorth-west · Ouham-Pendé

Since 1973

Baoro

A mission where more than half the population still cannot read. Around ten village primary schools teach some 3,500 children, a nursery welcomes about 200 more each year, and a mechanics school recognised by the ministry has trained hundreds of young mechanics since 1997.

3,500pupils in the mission's village schools
1997the year the mechanics school opened

BaoroA school for every village

Since 1983

Yolé

The minor seminary stands on 108 hectares beside the Yolé river, near Bouar, and teaches some 250 boys through to the classical baccalaureate. It has formed priests, but also doctors, magistrates, teachers and fathers of families. Sales of the lavender essence helped to build it.

250boys studying at the seminary
108 haof land on the Yolé river

YoléThe seminary the lavender built

Since 2006

Bangui

The Carmel on the edge of the capital trains young Carmelites and farms more than 131 hectares: oil, beans and coffee, livestock, and a tree nursery of ebony, teak and ayous for reforestation. In the war years it became something else entirely.

131 haof farmland and forest nursery
10,000people sheltered from 2013 to 2017

BanguiThe Carmel of the capital

Bangui, December 2013

“Our monastery suddenly became a refugee camp.”

Father Federico Trinchero, Carmel of Bangui

When violence reached the capital on 5 December 2013, the friars opened the gates of their Carmel to people fleeing the fighting. Around ten thousand stayed, for three years and three months.

IVWhere it goes

What a little can do

Real costs from the missions' recent appeals, as published by Amicizia Missionaria, the friars' mission office in Arenzano.

€40: treats a patient at Bozoum for malaria, typhoid or intestinal parasites
€60: keeps elderly and leprosy patients in dressings for a month
€120: pays for a hernia operation for someone who could never afford it
€1,540: trained and paid three new teachers for villages that had no school
€9,950: drills a deep well for a village that has never had clean water
€36,100: builds a new study room for the boys of the Yolé seminary

VThe lavender of Arenzano

Watch the friars at work

In 1977 Father Anastasio Roggero, born in the lavender village of Pietrabruna, asked whether that flower could help the people his brothers served in Africa. The friars have distilled it for the missions ever since.

Pro missioni, in the Omnia store

Every product supports the missions

VIQuestions

Good to know

Where exactly does the money go?

Omnia gives all of its profit from the Sant'Anna range in the Omnia store to the Carmelite missions in the Central African Republic, through the friars' mission office at Arenzano, near Genoa. The missions decide where it is most needed: health care, schools, water and food.

Is it only the lavender range?

No. The friars created their lavender range to fund the missions, and Omnia adds to that by giving the profit from every Sant'Anna product in the Omnia store, rose, sandalwood, soaps and gift sets included.

How do I order?

Add the pieces you would like to your enquiry and send it to us. Our team in Chiswick will reply by email with availability, gift wrapping and collection or delivery options.

Can I see the products first?

Yes. The range is on display at our clinic at 8-9 Bedford Corner, The Avenue, Chiswick, London W4 1LZ. You are welcome to come in, try the creams and smell the soaps.

Do you make corporate or larger gift orders?

We do. Send an enquiry with the number of gifts and your budget, and we will put together a selection in our white Omnia boxes.

“Not even a glass of water given with love goes unnoticed.”

Amicizia Missionaria, the friars' mission office

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