ORPHANAGE – A SMALL CHRISTMAS GIFT
On 26th December, Christmas had just passed but for us was about to start. The truth spirit of Christmas, about sharing and giving, met us one day after Christmas.
During the morning, we went to DAPP Clothes Collection to select 300 clothes for 150 children, two pieces per children. These children were not like some other Malawian children that had spent Christmas with their families, those were institutionalized children: all of them orphans.
We arrived at the orphanage, a small room, located in a poor slum in Blantyre. 150 children were there seated, waiting for us. As the responsible for the orphanage explained, all of them were living with foster parents in houses around the orphanage.
The children started to sing and the ones belonging to preschool, said the numbers, the alphabet and English songs. It was so impressive to see children so young knowing so well these subjects when sometimes in primary schools the knowledge of English is far behind.
All the staff that works in this orphanage are volunteers, no one receives a salary; it’s just about good willing.
The person in charge of the orphanage, has an enormous sense of mission. He explained the day that the orphanage started: the parents of one child died in a car crash and a priest took care of that orphan. After he opened this Centre to give shelter to other children. This priest was his father.
In the day that we visited the orphanage, we shared a small gift: lollipops and two pieces of clothes per child. They were so grateful even if some clothes were a bit bigger than the size of the smallest ones, no one complaint. After this, we went to see the new orphanage under construction. We could see that too many things are still needed to be done. Just some walls made of bricks and some structure above made of timber were raised in that place. The principle found someone to sponsor the construction but due to lack of funds, he could not pursuit his father´s dream.
We also want to be part of this project, to finish what his father started and then to let a small footprint in the orphans future.
We found the responsible for this orphanage truly committed with his purpose of providing a better life to the ones that for a variety of reasons, were left alone in this world. We believe in him and in his project.