World Community Service Committee donates $7,000 to the Give Hope, Fight Poverty
Swaziland, Africa is a small country with a population that has been decimated by HIV/AIDS. The AIDS pandemic, highest in the world, left over 120,000 orphans in its wake with a total population of only one million people. The number of orphaned children exceeds the number of caretakers leaving the orphans to fend for themselves in child-headed homes. Give Hope, Fight Poverty works holistically to ensure that the orphans receive a high quality education – but scholarships alone are insufficient. The children need food, water, healthcare, shelter, and sanitation to stay in school and be successful in their pursuit of an education.
The lack of proper sanitation and hygiene in rural Swazi communities has led to communicable disease, school absences, and entirely preventable death among children. The Indianapolis Rotary Foundation played a crucial part in addressing the sanitation and hygiene needs of our orphans in two rural communities: Malindza Village and eLangeni Village. The Indianapolis Rotary Foundation’s donation enabled us to attack the sanitation challenges three ways:
- We build pit latrine toilets strategically at schools and throughout the communities.
- We partner with local Swazi hotels to sanitize and distribute used soap to schools and child-headed homes.
- We distribute reusable sanitary pads to adolescent girls to ensure they are able to continue their education through their menstrual cycles.
Teachers have been reporting increased attendance and we have not had a single case of Rotavirus since the beginning of this Rotary sponsored program. We are excited to continue witnessing the progress and will continue the soap and sanitary pad program throughout the year.
The photos are of our youngest cohort of orphans at our Malindza New Hope Children’s Centre (green uniforms), my husband sanitizing and reforming the used soaps with bleach and hot water, and one of the pit latrine toilet structures in almost finished condition (only the door needed hung).
