Whisper. Altogether making a difference to children in Uganda: Diana

After a very hard day we got home late, when our little John said he was feeling very sick and his fever raised up to 39.5. We rushed to the only hospital that operates 24/7. It was after midnight.

Little John was admitted in the hospital and we got home at 4 in the morning exhausted.

I thought of cancelling the early visit to one family the same morning - as we promised the previous day, after getting a phone call from a friend that there is mother who died and left suffering children.

I went to bed but some urge woke me up at 6.30 and I knew I had to make it to the village for 7...

DIANA:

Diana was a tiny 4 months old baby girl. Her mother died just two days before we got there.

Let me tell you the story:

Our friend Mille was visiting a friend at the main Jinja Hospital when she was approached by two women, she remembered their faces as her family friend was married to one of the woman.

The woman whom her friend was married to was in terrible state. She was very skinny, dirty and had jiggers (the worm parasites) all over her body, even on her face. She had no energy left and cried for help. She said that doctors refused to treat her and refused to admit her at the hospital as they were scared to touch her... the poor women cried to our friend Mille about her children and a little baby girl. Mille promised her she will contact Whisper in order to come and help those children...

The young woman died later in the day on the grass in front of the hospital. At this point Mille called our office and made an apponitment with us the following morning.

Later the same day, the only "boda boda man" (motorbike taxi) carried the dead body back to the village where he dumped the body of young mother on the side of the road...

When we reached to the village on Friday morning and we saw little Diana, our hearts absolutely broke. Little Diana, beautiful baby girl, weighing only 4 kg, with dried and broken skin, ingrown dirt on her head, knotted hair and parasites sucking blood on her feet and hands, we took her to our arms and never gave her back...

Diana has two other aunties who are sister to her mother. They both refused to care for Diana as one of aunties does not have a baby on her own and her husband refused to care for a baby which is not his own and the other had a baby her own and her husband threaten to stab the baby to death if she brings it.

I was told by our friend Mille with tears in her eyes that this family never received help from anyone.

The poor mother of Diana suffered from HIV, not being able to care for herself nor her children. The baby was never washed before.... We were giving Diana her first bath at the orphanage. It took 7 days to gently get rid of the ingrown dirt on her scalp.

It has been over a week we care for this beautiful little angel and my heart goes so much to the mother and I promised myself that we will not disappoint her. Diana will continue having a name that her mother chose for her and we will make sure that this precious baby will make her proud...

In order to care for this baby, Whisper has to invest lots of our finances that were not allocated previously to this and we are taking money from our reserves and one off donations in order to care for Diana.

Diana was at the hospital and she is HIV negative so far. Diana is about to finish her course of antibiotics and she improved visibly and physically.

Diana needs breast feeding which is not available to her. We buy dry milk for new born babies which is only available in town for 29.000 shillings (£7.60), the tin of dried milk lasts her for about 2 days only. Nappies are also very expensive as we change her as often as she eats.

We also employed a temporary nurse to care for her whilst our mamas are busy caring for the rest of the children.

Care for Diana will be costing Whisper £100 month for the first year or year and half having her in our care.

We appreciate any donation our Whisper friends made in the last 7 days towards Dajana and we will continue working to our best abilities to give this girl hope that her and her mother didn't have.

Diana wakes up with smiles and she likes to talk a lot especially after milk. Every time I look at her, I can imagine the suffer both Diana and the mother must have been going through until her very last day of her life. Everytime I look at her again and again, I am just grateful for the opportunity to be able to rescue children like Diana. Whisper is blessed with many miracles.

PS: John has now fully recovered and is back from the hospital on the home treatment.

Here are some wonderful picture of Diana