Click HERE to help. . . or CONTACT US

"AIDS grannies" & Speedbumps
"Spring arrives and the earth shows its renewal in the Northern Hemisphere. The news in America focuses on presidential elections and the state of the economy, which seems to be hitting a speed bump on the high-speed expressway into the future. The Economy! Some people are saying things are not good. Others say they are downright bad. Gas prices are too high. Food costs too high. Wages too low. But wait a minute. Let’s take another look, a real look from the standpoint of the economy of the entire world not just the affluent western part of it. Those who have grown up in the prosperous west have little ability to compare when it comes to their well-being and position in life. Thus a downward bump feels like a catastrophic fall. In reality the fall they are feeling has little real comparison to what most of the people on earth today are living and suffering . . ." - The Malawi Project
Skinny, wrinkled and gap-toothed, with gnarled, black hands, the old lady cooks a meagre meal on a small fire outside her slum hut. Like grandmothers all over Africa, she has been left to fend for orphans after her own children and husband died. Their only meal today will be a small bowl of ground up maize and perhaps one of the bananas that is ripening on the tree near her house. Her hut of mud and grass measures 10 by 8 feet and is too dark to see more than a few inches even in the middle of the day. The roof leaks. Somehow she shelters four grandchildren, two great grandchildren and the child of a dead relative. They have no heating stove and only two tattered blankets for cold nights. There is no toilet or running water . . .

Drinking From a Dirty Pool. . .
She walks a mile for water from a dirty pool near the trading center. The water is not filtered after farm animals upstream contaminate the flow. There are no health services or environmental people who watch out for pollutants in the air, land and food. Their clothes are dirty (they have no change of clothes) and the only place they can be washed is that same dirty stream from which she obtained her drinking and bathing water a little while ago.

There is no welfare system to provide a protective umbrella over her or the children. They will just have to plant some grain and harvest some food and feel the pains of starvation from time to time. No one around them can help if they get sick. They must walk a long distance to get even the most meager form of healthcare. And often the small clinic is out of supplies and they get nothing. If their house catches on fire it will burn to the ground. There is no fire department.

Yes, the economy is bad, maybe getting worse for some. But for others, like these in Africa, there is no economy at all!

According to U.N. figures, at least 12 million children in Africa have lost one or both parents because of AIDS. The number of orphans in Africa has increased by 50 percent and there will be 53 million by 2010. The burden of this disaster is borne by extended families, most often grandmothers, who might have otherwise dreamed of returning to their home villages for retirement at the end of a tough life. Some sell charcoal - the slum's primary fuel -for a few shillings profit, after buying from nearby wholesalers. Some grandmothers wash clothes, making about $2 a day, to help feed surviving children who have no jobs. Without grandmothers and other relatives, many more orphans would end up as glue-sniffing street children or child prostitutes. Some children have been raped as they went door-to-door begging for food. Many of the grandmothers are themselves weakened by HIV as well as old age, making it even harder for them to feed their charges. CRF Child Sponsorship is helping to provide a future and a hope for over 1200 children in Africa. $25 per month provides food, clothing, schooling, and Bible study for children who are struggling to survive.
Click HERE to help. . .