Happy Easter Everyone,
It was a quite a long day for us as everything is closed down for the holiday. Mary and I attended church in the morning and then the rest of the day has been free. This is good as we very much needed to rest after our big day yesterday. The Easter egg party at Hakahana was a success! We had a good turn-out, over 200 children came for the celebration. We supplied the food for the lunch that I suspect fed at least 250 if you include adults and volunteers. We had invited a group of nursing students from the Netherlands to help and I don’t know how we would have managed without them. When we arrived at 7:30, there was already a group of children waiting to get in the gates. If you can image we managed to keep them behind the gates until 9:oo!! We paid for a clown and a media system so that we could entertain the kids with music and a few Disney cartoons. The distraction was good as it took many hours to prepare the meal. The adults had fun hiding the plastic eggs outside(thanks Lynn) and the chocolate eggs indoors. Imagine trying to keep all those kids behind a gate for an hour and a half!!! My favorite part is opening the gates and watching them run!! We had the volunteers take the little ones by hand to help them find the eggs, and of course we kept some candy separate for the ones who came later. Hearing the children’s excitement and laughter was sooo wonderful.
The clown was fantastic and she had all the children mesmerized as she performed magic tricks. We were busy getting the lunch ready. We had cabbage salad, rice with soup, chicken, fat cakes, and we made two garbage cans full of Tang with added Vit. C tablets for the many colds that children seem to have. Mary and I had also popped 2 garbage bags full of popcorn! Each child was given a baggie with fruit rings and sweets to take with them.
The serving of the food was a bit chaotic and that’s putting it mildly! Two days before the party someone broke into the community center and took the burner we so desperately needed to prepare the food. We were able to borrow a 2 burner grill the morning of the party. We started cooking and preparing food immediately in the morning so that it would be ready by noon. When you have 200 starving children you don’t want to make them wait when they know that food is coming. It was an assembly line of women preparing and serving the food. We had to try and keep some sort of order otherwise you have children sneaking back for seconds when others have not had any. It reminds me of the movie “Oliver Twist”—‘please sir can I have somemore’! The behavior of hungry children is an experience that I can never forget. It was a shock to the volunteers that had never seen that before. Children act very naughty-they fight and grab for food. It is extremely difficult to maintain any kind of order. Many of these children are orphans and all live in extreme poverty. This was the only meal that they would eat today and they don’t know if there will be food for tomorrow. So they grab food and stuff it in their shirts or pockets so they will have some for later. I tried to explain this to the volunteers as they have not seen how these children are living. They have no manners and there is no please and thank-you’s—it’s just survival. The mothers are not much different as they are busy planning for any leftovers that they may have to feed their children for another day. How can we (Americans- Europeans) even imagine what their lives are like when we have never experienced hunger and starvation? What would any of us as mother’s do to feed our children if they were starving?
So Mary and I are now qualified to work at any soup kitchen in the US!! At the end of the day we shooed the children out of the center and cleaned up the enormous mess. Then we turned on the music, opened the gate and let them back in and we danced for the next 2 hours! Even the Ouma’s (grandmothers) danced!!! It was really a lovely day. Our goal for that day was that children would have full bellies, lots of fun, and a good memory that they could take with them and hopefully never forget!!! Thank you all for making this possible for the children.
God Bless and Happy Easter, Love Annie and Mary
Our Mission
African Community Health Inititiave (ACHI)
Provide basic health care services to those lacking access to such care in both rural Nigeria and urban Namibia.
These services include:
*Overall Physicals (including Fasting Glucose levels, Vitals, HIV/AIDS testing etc..)
*Medication Management and Maintenance programs *Disease Management
*Health Education that addresses disease prevention, hygiene and nutrition
*Consultations and referrals
Mount Sinai
A program started by Katutura State Hospital Nurse Christa Biart-Vega, who works in the ARV (antiretroviral) pediatric clinic, Mount Sinai provides HIV counseling, health education, well baby checks, formula, water and sippy cups for 105 babies and their HIV+ mothers. If the child is tested HIV- after 6 weeks of being breastfed, the hospital or clinic refers them to Christa. At this point it is important to discontinue breastfeeding: replacing breast milk with formula means that the baby will remain HIV-. Unfortunately, due to the lack of funds Christa has to limit the number of mothers and babies in her program because it is a commitment to feed each child for six months. Christa did receive land in Katutura for the clinic, but lacks the funds to begin building. Not only will this building be used to continue the program that Christa has started, she also envisions it as a safe place for moms and their children, as well as a hospice for children with AIDS to peacefully die in instead of out on the streets. Your donations will go towards formula, sippy cups, water and overall costs. More money means more women can enroll in the program and with your help Nurse Christa will finally be able to have a building to go along with her amazing, life saving program!
Family Hope Sanctuary
FHS is a community based program run by Abigail Maposa located in the extremely poor settlements of Hakahana. FHS’s program helps in two ways: first, to empower women, most of whom are HIV+, TB, single mothers who are raising orphans; and second, through its school readiness program. This program reaches children who are not in the school system and provides them with an education and a safe place to stay. More importantly, the heart of FHS is its kitchen: it feeds hundreds of children each day, which for most is the only meal they will get that day. Lacking the most basic necessities of life, all of these kids are grateful for such a meal, and are in dire need of a formal education before it is too late. Your donations will go towards education, food, clothes, shoes, water and other necessities. Amazingly, $20 sends a child to school for a whole year (books and uniforms included)!
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
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