Hello Friends and Family of OWI (Ordinary Women, Inc.),
As we reflect upon this Christmas season and all we have to be thankful for, I can't help but thank God for the OWI Orphan Program (OP) in Kenya. Even though most of us live across the globe from this program, your sponsorships and prayers are making a difference in these precious orphans' lives.
I want to write this month about a fourteen year old girl named Risper. Risper started in the OP at the beginning of the program in January, 2008. She is HIV+. She contracted HIV/AIDS from her mother who died from it. Risper's mother contracted the disease from Risper's father who was a refugee from the Congo. He returned to the Congo, and they don't know if he is alive today.
Through our program, family members agreed to take Risper into their home. Risper had not been getting medication at all for HIV/AIDS before the OP. After being placed in the OP, she started going into Kitale (about a twenty five minute bus ride from Kiminini) to a treatment center to receive free medication from the government. However, because of the stigma in Kenya of HIV and the lack of education on how the illness is contracted, the guardian family was treating Risper like an outcast. She wasn't allowed to play or be around the other children in the home for fear that she would give them the illness. And Risper continually got sick because the family didn't give her the medications as prescribed. So, after attempted trainings with the guardians and no change for Risper in the home, the social workers of the OP found a boarding school that Risper could attend where a nurse would monitor Risper's medication and health. Because of the OP, she was able to be placed in such a school and a positive living environment.
During the school breaks, Risper returned to her guardian home, and Patrick, the Director of the OP, visited her and her guardians to work on building their relationship. Through their hard work and diligence, and through the ongoing HIV/AIDS education provided by the OP, the guardians' attitude toward Risper has completely changed. They no longer stigmatize her. They accept her, they accept her illness, they allow her to play with the other children in the home. They are taking her in as one of their own. This is truly a miracle. And we have been fortunate enough to watch it unfold.
Risper is no longer at the boarding school. She doesn't need to be. She stays at her guardians' home and goes to school at the local day school. She goes monthly to Kitale to the treatment center for her HIV medications, and she takes them as prescribed. She recently had a rash from taking her medications, so the guardians took her to the hospital to get the proper treatment. She received it, took her medication for the rash, and is healing from it.
This is another way that the OWI Kenya Orphan Program is leading the way for cultural change in Africa.
If you would like to give an extra gift during this holiday season that will help us pay the orphan food bill or for boarding school tuition costs for the orphans, please send your tax-deductible donation to the address listed below or go to our website and make a donation using paypal.
If you are interested in supporting one of the orphans in our Orphan Program for just $35 a month, please go to our website at www.ordinarywomen.org and you can choose your orphan from the profiles. Or you can write to us at:
Ordinary Women, Inc
26861 Trabuco Road, Suite E#146
Mission Viejo, Ca. 92691
Joining Hands for Global Change,
Darla Morfin
Ordinary Women, Inc.
Executive Director- OWI Orphan Program
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