Photo: Chhavi Sharma/Lifeline Energy 2009
For two days now we have been working with Trust & Care, a local organisation run primarily by volunteers providing a variety of support to vulnerable children. Over two days we have met 40 children who are the heads of households, looking after for their younger siblings. Most have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS.
For today’s distribution we are travelling a little further off the tarmac road – taking a turn onto a little used dirt track that would eventually lead us to a small school where the children would be waiting. The winding, bumpy road went past garden plots of banana trees, bean stalks and coffee plants and where turning a bend we came across a group of young people – one of whom was carrying a bright blue Lifeline radio.
Laurence, 20, looks after three younger siblings and attended our training session the day before. As a subsistence farmer, she was taking her new radio with her to listen to while she tended her garden plot. It was great to see her putting her radio to use, but I had to have a bit of a laugh as well – despite the big handle on the radio and our cheerful instructions during the trainings to “carry it like a handbag!” Laurence was holding the radio in her arms like a baby, with the bottom of the radio nestled in the paper packing carton that came with the box.
