This is the story that is hardest to tell...it is the story about the kids and AIDS. I had the merit to volunteer at the Home of Hope orphanage in Mchinje District, Malawi, at the beginning of 2010. The kids are all smiley and silly but many of them are sick. Can you tell which of these kids have AIDS? Well, I can tell you it is more than one. The children in the orphanage do not know who has AIDS on account of it's a big stigma. It is a terrible, life-threatening, debilitating affliction and if I had it, I wouldn't want anyone to know either.
The average life expectancy in Malawi is 39 years old disease-free and 44 years total. From 39 to 44, you may live but you will live with disease and let's just call it like it is...you will "live" with AIDS. One of the volunteers I worked with, Gaby, is a medical doctor. She said if a baby is born to a mother with AIDS, the baby has a 20% chance of having AIDS. If the baby is breast-fed by the mother with AIDS, the chances of contracting the disease increases. Let's say you are a mother with AIDS in a village and you are told that you are increasing the chance that your baby will contract AIDS and die if you breast-feed your baby. What can you do? Your baby is hungry and your baby is crying. You feed your baby is what the mother will do! Gaby isn't optimistic about the life-span of the sick little ones.
There MUST be an alternative to seeing your baby starve or seeing your baby contract AIDS! There must be.......................
Please, if you can make a difference, make a donation to www.raisingmalawi.org and designate the Home of Hope as the recipient.
