Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Sponsoring Kids isn't just for the first world

I felt like I was at the circus this morning. A car rolled to a quick stop in front of my office door, spitting gravel and moaning, sagging under the load it was forced to bear. A single door opened, and like the circus clown car, a steady stream of people began to emerge and file into the office. A neverending stream really… how many people can you fit in a Corolla? Just as impossibly they all then sat onto a couch designed for three people, and waited expectantly.

These were the kids of a local village just a few kilometres from our centre. Musaazi Moses, pictured, is one of our Post S4 students who has finished a diploma in primary education and is a teacher at a nearby school. He, along with Kasibante Vicent (friend and co-worker in the community services office) are together sponsoring all of the kids you see here as best as they can. Not through a formal program,but out of their own pockets they work together to purchase food, clothes, books, pens and pencils, and other things as needed to help these kids out. I asked Vicent why he was compelled to do this, and he answered, “I was helped when I was younger, and I was in a better situation than these kids, so how could I not assist them as well?” Most of the kids you see here don’t even have a home, and are instead transient, shifting between relatives as their ability to care for the kids weans. Then off to the next bed.

Vicent is also a Post S4 graduate. I love seeing guys like him and Moses, hearing their attitudes towards life and seeing how much sponsorship has changed their lives, the very way they look at the world here. They have devoted themselves and the little they earn to helping others for what seems like every waking moment of every day. They were helped themselves, and now they are a success and are able to give back to others in need.

Really puts the commercials from back home into my head. “For only a dollar a day…” - “for just the price of a cup of coffee…” But how much more does “only one dollar a day” mean when you make four?

1 comment:

Cheryl said...

Wow....that's awesome :) Thanks for sharing....