The Million Malawi Orphan Youngsters

By Chris Du Toit


Approximately 12,800 miles from the United States is Malawi, Africa. The population of Malawi is 12.2 million. Virtually 1,000,000 of the people are orphans.

Absence of food, cash, water and health-care are partially to blame. HIV/AIDS is answerable for over 500k of the orphans. An estimated one million people are infected by HIV/Aids[**]. Mothers pass the illness on to their new-borns and never receive any sort of treatment. Ultimately the parent or elders die, leaving older kids to look after the more youthful siblings or leaving the kid completely alone. That cycle continues repeatedly every day in Africa.

Most families have multiple kids and do not have enough funds to feed and care for everybody, so they take them to shelters or leave them behind wishing that they'll be better off. Most shelters simply have no room nor the resources to take in each orphan. The necessity for food and clean water to drink is vital.

There are countless hundreds of orphanages through Africa. The SOS Children's Village do their part to make an appalling situation, have a good ending. In the village, "mothers" are allotted to each household. Theses women make a lifelong commitment to look after the orphans they are allotted. The assignment shortly mimics a family of brothers and sisters. A household "mother" can have up to twelve dozen children at a time. There are several of these villages across Malawi that house and support more than 5,000 orphans and other vulnerable kids.

Pop singer, Madonna, has additionally been doing her bit to help. In 2008, she made a trip to the kids of Malawi and filmed a documentary about the orphan youngsters. She also shared with us the incontrovertible fact that she, herself, lost her mother when she was six years old. She put herself straight in the midst of the pain of these kids and has shone a light on a major problem in the world. Those youngsters require more people to get up and cherish and care for them.

Whether or not it's money, support or a straightforward act of recognition, there's more work to be done.




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