Forever Angels
Caring for orphaned and abandoned babies in Africa

trustees@foreverangels.org

Amy's Diary: News, thoughts and general day-to-day musings from Amy Hathaway, our On-site Manager.


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Recent Posts

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Wednesday, July 28, 2010- What a Superstar!

Today was a great day......Ernest came back for a visit as he had a clinic appointment - and he is doing WONDERFULLY! He is the healtheist I have ever known him, has gained half a kilo and is talking! At the Baby Home, he whispered very quietly if he wanted something, and often no sound would even come out...but today, Ernest was literally shouting!


He didn't stop laughing the whole day! He totally adores his Bibi but was happy to see all the Mammas and kids at the Baby Home! He remembered ALL their names and shouted to everyone and even spent some time in Preschool with his old friends!


Sometimes when children go home to their families, it is hard for us to say Goodbye - because we KNOW they are going to live in poverty. We KNOW we are sending them off to a 'worse' life.
At the Baby Home our babies are hugged and kissed every day, they are played with and sung to, bathed and fed and given medicine if they are sick. Out in the village - this generally does not happen. Village children would be lucky to even get one basic meal a day.....

When I took Ernest home to live with his Grandma last month - I was amazed at the imense poverty of his family. They owned nothing - not one peice of furniture, not a chair, nothing. I can admit that I was unsure if going home was a good thing for Ernest - he was a sick little boy who hadn't had a day without fever in the whole year he lived with us. He was constantly back and forward to hospital and needed a lot of attention. I wasn't sure his family would be able to provide that - and have worried a lot since he left, that we made the right decision?

But I needn't have worried - Ernest is doing SO well. He is the healthiest I have EVER known him - and most definately the happiest! His infectious giggle made me laugh and cry all the way home. (I've been doing that a lot lately!) and I now truly believe going home was the right thing for him.

Ernest's Bibi LOVES him and he adores her. He may have had a great day with us - but his giggles got even louder and happier as he got back into the car to go home to his family - that was definately where he wanted to be going.

At the Baby Home we can give a lot of things - we can give love, care, food, clothes, shelter, entertainment, fun, laughter, medical care....all the things you think of as essential for a child.

But we are not, and never will be a substitute for a REAL family.

Ernest has a hard life ahead of him - he will probably never walk and may always struggle with illness. But right now - he is not ill, he has no fevers, he is in no pain and is spending his days laughing with the people he loves.
These kids amaze me each and every day - but seeing Ernest so happy and confident and healthy today made me realise, more than ever, that the best thing we can do for these children - is 'to fix them up' and give them back to their families.

Bibi Ernest has no money, no food, no furniture. She has no stimulating toys to offer Ernest, no Sensory room and no TV. But she has love. And sometimes - it really IS enough.


Ernest - you made my day, my week, my month....even my year!

I love you and miss you so much - but seeing you today, and knowing how happy and healthy you are, made me simply glow. I am proud to know you. Thank you for being such a resilient, amazing little boy and for teaching us all what really is important in life.
Posted @ 3:14 PM

Sunday, July 25, 2010- Nappy Liners Plea

For any volunteers coming out here in the near future.....or for anyone who is just feeling generous and would like to send a DHL box out to the Baby Home / or even just a small parcel to us - we are desperate for Nappy Liners (the disposible liners which go inside cloth nappies).....

They cost about £3.99 for 100 liners....so not much more than a Pint of Beer! All support would be most appreciated....especially by our babies little bottoms!



Thank you SO much for any support you can give.
Posted @ 8:56 PM

- 60's Night for Forever Angels

On Saturday 2nd October, our UK Trustees are holding a Sixties Night in Nantwich, Cheshire to raise money for Forever Angels.

The evening will include a Hog Roast, Live Entertainment and a great night out is promised! Tickets cost £10 and can be bought from Val on 01606 554271 or Karen on 07883 006955.

Please come and tell all your friends and family about it - a great night out for a wonderful cause!

Posted @ 8:12 PM

Thursday, July 22, 2010- Two new beauties....

Today we welcomed two new children to Forever Angels. Meet two year old Yona and fourteen month old Jacobo. Both children were sadly abandoned and have no where else to go.



This brings our number of children at Forever Angels to 55 - but we DO have a number of children who will be leaving us very soon.

We were SO pleased to hear yesterday that Mavuna Village (a new wonderful Orphanage an hour out of town) received its license yesterday! http://www.mavunovillage.org/index.shtml
The ideaology of Mavuna Village is wonderful - the children will live in families of 10 children with a Mum and a Dad. It is a beautiful place on the edge of Lake Victoria and we have a good relationship with the Directors and hopefully they will take many of our children once they reach 3 years who have no family. Congratulations to all at Mavuna - your hard work has paid off....and now the hard work really starts! We look forward to a long relationship with you.

We are so happy that Michael and Aika will be moving there next week. We took them both for a visit yesterday to meet their new Mum and Dad and they are both very excited to go. Of course, these two children have been with us at Forever Angels for about three years and saying 'goodbye' is a huge wrench....but knowing they will have a family and be well cared for is amazing.


We also received news today that two families have been approved to adopt here in Mwanza and have been instructed to choose a child from Forever Angels - so although we do not know who they will choose yet, two more of our babies will be getting a new family very soon.

We also have the most amazing family who have been approved to adopt Evie and any day now, they will be taking her home. Evie is THE most adorable little girl I have ever met and I am just thrilled that she will become a part of this fabulous family. I will miss my daily hugs from this little monkey - but I couldn't have hand picked a more perfect family for my little girl to go to! More on this VERY soon I hope!


We also heard that Anna and Ben's father is going to take them home in the next few weeks - again, a wonderful success story!


Talking of success stories - last week we had visits from two of our 'Flown Children' - Mathias and Davey both came back to visit us! Davey left Forever Angels over a year ago and went to live with his Aunt. He is doing SO well - he looked so healthy and clearly adored his Aunt - though did allow me a few big kisses and hugs! Mathias left before Christmas and went home to his Dad - and again, he is healthy, has gained weight and is happy and loved. His dad comes back every two months to get the medicine Mathias needs - and he comes every time on the exact date.
I LOVE it when our babies leave Forever Angels and live their 'happy ever after'!


That's all for today.....
Posted @ 9:39 PM

Saturday, July 17, 2010- ChaCha's Dream...

Some people you meet in life change you. Some shock you. Some sadden you. Some make you realise just how unfair a world we live in. And some simply inspire you. I have known ChaCha for 3 years now and she has always impressed me....but today she reached a higher level and utterly amazed me.....

I first met ChaCha in the Social Welfare Office in 2007. She had with her 4 children ranging from 7 years to 7 months and she was there to ask for help. ChaCha suffers from epilepsy, which sadly, in Africa, is very misunderstood. People believe that seizures are the work of the devil and so ChaCha has been shunned most of her life, unable to find friends or a job.

I noticed that ChaCha had severe burns across her chest and I asked her about them. She told me that three months previously, she had a seizure whilst cooking and she fell into the fire. Her breasts were entirely burnt off, meaning she had no way to feed her newborn twins. Sadly, one of the twins died from starvation, but Dotto survived. She looked about a month old and I was amazed to discover she was actually 7 months old!

I went with ChaCha to her house and found her and her children living in utter squalor. She had one tiny mud brick room with not a piece of furniture. The floor had a few rags on it and one thermos flask.


Apart from that, she owned no possessions. ChaCha was prostituting herself to make enough money to buy her children food, but she usually 'made' less than 50 pence a day.

I persuaded Social Welfare to help this family as I wanted to try to help ChaCha to dig herself out of this poverty. Social Welfare placed her two youngest children at Forever Angels - Bahati (age 2) and Dotto (7 months). Her two oldest children (age 6 and 8) stayed with ChaCha. I gave ChaCha a job at the Baby Home as a cleaner and we rented her a new house close to the Baby Home as well as bought a bed and some clothes for her children.

ChaCha proved to be one of the most hard working people I have ever met. She is very uneducated, unable to read or write (we recently taught her how to write her name) but she has one of the best work ethics I have ever known. ChaCha is a cleaner - her job is not a pleasant one - and yet she does it amazingly every single day and has a smile on her face throughout.

Bahati and Dotto stayed at Forever Angels for a few months. ChaCha was able to see them every day whilst she was working. ChaCha fell pregnant again during this time and gave birth to Imani who also came to Forever Angels when she was just a few hours old because ChaCha was unable to produce milk.


I am sure as you read this, you will be wondering why ChaCha keeps falling pregnant and having more children when she is unable to care for them. I often wondered the same thing. Maybe it is due to a lack of education? Maybe she wants a big family to love? Maybe men force themselves upon her and she has little choice?

What I have seen over the years, is that despite ChaCha living in dire poverty - her children are very well looked after. They never appear hungry, they rarely get sick and they clearly all adore her.


About two years ago, ChaCha asked me to start saving some of her salary each month as she wanted to build a house of her own, instead of paying rent on someone else's tiny room. ChaCha religiously gave me back half her salary every single month for us to save for her...and over the last two years, her savings have grown to quite a substantial amount.

For someone with very little academic skills - ChaCha has her head firmly on her shoulders and knows what she wants in life.

In March this year, ChaCha came to me to ask for some of her saved money as she had found a plot of land she wanted to buy to start building her house. And every week since, she has come to me asking for a little more of her savings.

Today, ChaCha asked me to go and see her house with her and having a couple of hours to spare, I agreed. Her house is in the middle of nowhere....it takes her 1 hour and 40 minutes to walk to and from work each day! ChaCha could have built her house anywhere - but she told me she built there because she wants to have some land so that she can grow crops to feed her children.

Until today, I thought that ChaCha was still living in her old house until her new house had been completed. But it seems that she had to move out because her neighbours saw her have a seizure and thought she was bringing the devil into their village. So her and her 5 children are living in their new house.

ChaCha is SO proud of her house. She grinned all the way up the (very large!) hill as we walked up to it. She kept telling me that she has three bedrooms and the children are so happy to have their own space to play. She told me about the chickens she has bought and the maize she has planted.


When I arrived at the house - I realised that all ChaCha had told me was true....but the house was still only half built. The walls were almost finished, but there were no doors, no roof...it was a building site. There were however chickens running around, there was the foundations for three bedrooms and she did have a good crop of maize growing.

As we arrived, Bahati came running out of the house and into my arms. I was surprised he even remembered me! He happily showed me around his new house and as we stepped over rubble, wires, metal rods, chickens and their chicks, large knives and the occasional toy.....I didn't know whether to smile or to cry.

ChaCha has dreamed of this house since she was a little girl when she also lived in dire poverty. She has worked ridiculously hard for the last two years and saved every single available penny to put towards building her dream. ChaCha does not seem faltered by the fact that the house has no doors and no roof. She has a house. She owns the land. Her and her children are finally worth something. ChaCha is one proud Mama.

She told me that she has now run out of money and so needs to wait for each pay packet (at the end of every month) to complete her house. That will mean eating minimally so that she is able to put about £30 a month towards finishing her house.....the rains will come and go and ChaCha will still have no roof on her house, no bed to sleep in, no blankets to keep out the cold and 5 young children to care for in what all of us would call a building site.

So, you may be asking why I am inspired by this woman? Why does a woman who bears more children than she can care for deserve my praise? Why does a woman who is bringing up her children in a dangerous 'squat', often leaving even the youngest alone all day, need to be applauded and not reprimanded?

Because half of Africa live the way she is living right now.....in dire poverty....and do nothing about it. Almost all of them are 'happy' with their deal in life and do nothing to strive for more. They live in poverty their whole lives, watch their children die from totally curable illnesses and have no idea if they will eat each day....and yet, they are generally unable to do anything about it - unable to dig themselves out of the poverty they live in.

If you'd asked me who was the least likely of my Baby Home staff to succeed in life - I would probably have said ChaCha. Three years ago she didn't know how to hold a pen, let alone write her name. I would never have thought that she had the ability to save, to plan and to build a house of her own.

She is not there yet. And until she gets there, she and her children will suffer. They will shiver at night when the rain pours down onto their heads, they will probably get sick with malaria, they will feel hunger in the pit of their stomachs when there is no money for food because she is so desperate to buy just one more brick to complete her home....but ChaCha has a dream. She has a goal. And she is a strong woman and she will achieve it.


I can guarantee that in a years time, this family will be living in a completed house. They may not choose to furnish it as you or I would, and they may still be scrimping and saving and living day by day.....but ChaCha and her children will have security, a future and a home.

I am proud to know this family. Yes, I cried all the way home. Yes, I wondered what Social Welfare in England would say about a 1 year old and a 4 year old being left alone in a house all day, every day, while their Mum works, with no food, no shelter and sat among rubble and rusty nails.

I thought all of these things. But we don't live in England. In England, ChaCha would have been able to queue up at the 'Benefits Office' and she would have been given a nice, comfortable house for her and her family.

Life is not fair. In Africa - life is simply unfair for most people. ChaCha has had one of the most difficult lives of anyone I know. But what makes her a total inspiration to me, is that she is wholeheartedly determined that her own children will not suffer the way she has.

As I walked away back home, I looked back at ChaCha's house and my heart broke to see their 'suffering'....but then I caught a glipmse of the smiles on all their faces - the pride within them was so obvious that I was made to question everything. ChaCha and her children do not see themselves as suffering...they see themselves as achieving their dream.
ChaCha is a fighter. She is a strong and determined woman. She loves her children and she works hard to make their life better. ChaCha has a dream....and the ability to make me laugh and cry at the same time.

Sometimes our dreams seem impossible. Sometimes the path to achieving them is difficult and total hard work. Sometimes following our dreams even means living a life we are unhappy with.
Realising a dream is hard!

But once we get there - once our dream has been fulfilled....most of us realise that the journey getting there, however hard, was totally worth it. ChaCha is already smiling with utter pride....her half finished home is already a dream acheived.

Posted @ 11:35 PM

Wednesday, July 07, 2010- Goodbye Mija

Yesterday, Mija went home to live with her Father and relatives. Mija only stayed at Forever Angels for one year, but in that time, the care Forever Angels gave, allowed her to grow from a tiny, premature baby, into a healthy one year old.

This is the 'ideal' for Forever Angels - to support babies whose mother's have died in childbirth and to bring them to the standard of health needed for their own families to care for them.


Baba Mija is a very sweet man and I have no doubt that Mija will be a much loved little girl.


Goodbye Mija - we will all love and miss you but are SO happy that you are now living with your Daddy!

George is doing well at home and is full of smiles. A few of our older toddlers have got high fever but no other symptoms so I am waiting for the spots to appear! Bianca spent the morning fast asleep in my office with high fever, but still ate her lunch quite happily and is now playing in the garden!
Posted @ 2:02 PM

Wednesday, June 30, 2010- A New Bundle....

Meet Josephine, our newest member of Forever Angels! Josephine was abandoned straight after birth and has been cared for at the Hospital for the last month. Today she came to join us at the Baby Home. She was called 'Unknown Baby C' - so I gave her a prettier name - 'Josephine Angel'.

Josephine is healthy and weighs 3.07kg. She is a cute little thing and now our smallest baby.


We had to make room for her by moving Happy up to Big Baby Group....Happy was not actually very happy about this at all - but I am she will soon settle into her new routine.

I just wanted to post a couple of photos of Yazidi. When we first received him - he was a tiny newborn and very low birthweight. Over the months we came to realise that Yazidi's fontanelle's closed much too early meaning that he has microcephalus and most likely brain damage. He is, however, doing much better than I initially imagined and he is now sitting up by himself and starting to babble.


George looked SO much better when I saw him in hospital today - he has had a number of blood transfusions and is looking a much better colour. I hope we will be allowed to bring him home tomorrow....keep him in your thoughts.
Posted @ 6:19 PM

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