Meet Diana's father

BABY DIANA - STORY CONTINUE 

Baby Diana has grown into a happy, smiley and beautiful little lady for the last 9 Months since she is in our care.

About three weeks ago she could stand by herself and she appeared incredibly happy every time she achieved standing without any support.

Last week, Diana made her first 7 steps on her own, it was the moment when I felt very proud of this little fighter. Such moments bring the tears of joy into ones eyes.

Whisper decided to take the first steps in applying for her passports last week, and since things are complicated in Uganda because of child trafficking we needed to get a concern of her immediate family.

This is when we decided to track down her real father.

Two weeks before that we visited her step grandmother and aunties, informing them about Diana and they all refused to neither speak to the father or guide us where he stays.

So we just took the name and decided to drive to the far village on our own along with Diana.

After about an hour and half long drive, we stopped at the training centre and asked locals for a gentleman called Isabiry Livingstone.

Two gentlemens would guide us to the deep village, where Diana's father should be staying.

We drove the car through a small muddy road, surrounded by mud houses.

When we reached a small mudhouse on a nice and cleaned compound , we noticed an older man, standing there. When I looked at him, all energy around me was telling me "it must be him".

He appeared very tiny with only 5 teeth remaining in his mouth. His eyes said it all, it was Diana's father.

After questioning him,  he looked at Diana, he said: " this is my child."

I could already feel sadness in my heart. Without much explanation I could already feel what the situation must have been like when Diana's mother was still alive. From the fathers body language which appeared very calm and humble.

When he took Diana to his arms, he just smiled and could not believe how beautiful she looked. Suddenly all neighbours were around Diana wanted to see how she looked like. Actually nobody could believe it was her when they saw her.

At this point I stopped believing that Diana's father would be ever able to kill her. We could see that he just simply was not that kind of man.

We took Livingstone to Jinja to meet with the probation officer and get to see our orphanage where Diana's stays. When he said  he has to change into his best clothes, and instead of putting on some decent trousers and shirt, he came out with a very old pair of trousers full of holes and marks, some old shirt and vest and with one of the worst pair of shoes I have ever seen...



We also got to see Diana's aunties and uncles from the fathers side and it appeared that even the students from nearby primary school knew this family and Diana's story. They all came by the car appreciating Diana's appearance with comments full of wonder. 






It was a very emotional experience for me, because being with Diana from the very beginning, seeing her so small, malnourished. Her story also inspired a New Vision Papers, and they mentioned about this and our work on the 23th of April 2013. You can read the online version here: http://www.newvision.co.ug/news/642026-whisper-resuscitates-hope-for-children-in-jigger-infested-communities.html

A journalist used Diana's story for an article
about Whisper.

As soon as we arrived to Jinja city, we had some nice dinner, we took Livingstone to the market and got him two pairs of new trousers, two shirts, new shoes, socks (his socks were full of BIG holes), underwear. He was incredibly happy and so proud!!

We accommodated him next to my home for around £2.50 a night for the weekend, we took him to the orphanage home and as soon as he saw the kids coming up to us, happy and jolly, his eyes only shined!

When he entered the class and saw all the kids sitting there and being so content, he just shined in disbelief. We could all sense the energy of his appreciation to help the children as well as Diana. 

There is nothing that would tell us he is a bad man ready to kill his own daughter.

He began to tell us his story about his life with his beloved wife - the mother of Diana. 

Livingstone with his new shirt & trouses

He said: "the life was a struggle. I simply cannot manage to care for the children. My wife had other 3 children which died. One of them had epilepsy and there were other twins who could not survive the harsh living conditions in the village - they were 4 years old." Diana would have been another child, if Whisper didn't come along to rescue her." 

"I feel bad every time I think of my wife. Sometimes I can not eat. I am very sad".

Diana's father now lives on his own, and he said "I don't eat, it is only here when I have meals, but I can just cook a tea for myself and have some chapatti".

Every morning he goes to milk a cow, in return he takes 2l of milk which he then sells. So his monthly income is around 30.000 Ugandan Shillings a month, which is around £7.50.

Every day he would welcome us with a huge smile on his face and he would never ask for anything more other than small money for chapati and water. (yet of course we would always buy him some meat).

He is now co-operating with us on further documents. He loves to hold Diana, and look at her. He always smiles at her with a big joy.

We will be observing him and if all goes well and will prove to be someone else than previously described by Diana's aunties, we will be assisting him to easy his life.  

Diana's mother.

Getting new shoes for Livingstone (35.000 Shillings = £8.75)

 Report written by Veronika Cejpkova.

Joyce Wasira - a sad story of grandmother of Derick - our Whisper child

Derick - a child who joined our school in May 2011, he used to have severe active skin infection on his head and body. He was very low in confidence and spoke no word in English. All has changed now!

There is a little boy who comes to school at Whisper. His name is Derick. Up until a couple of months ago, he was living across the road from us in a house with his grandmother; Joyce Wasira. One day in February,  he said that he couldn't go home. I was skeptical and asked him why. He said there was no one there. His grandmother had been thrown in jail and his brothers were not home to look after him. 

Always loving and helpful lady Joyce,
who would donate to us fruits from her garden

Back on New Year's day, there was a big commotion coming from their house. I went to the gate to see what was going on…of course I didn't understand a word that was being said. Through Baba William I learned that the owner of the land was back and unhappy with that his land had been rented out to a sugar cane company. The owner was Joyce's estranged husband who had left back in 2011, leaving Joyce with children and grandchildren to provide for and absolutely no means. 

I started walking to get a matatu to take into Jinja soon after and as I was on the road, Joyce comes running up beside me. She is running to get the police. "They have beaten me" she says, very upset and out of breath. She gestures to her forehead and there is a swelling red bump. I try to get to her to explain further what has happened, but she is overwhelmed. So instead I do what I can and give her money for a boda boda to the police and back. 

Jump forward about 3 weeks, during which time I had been very sick with malaria and then busy with the children's return to school. Then in February, Derick comes to me and tells me there is no one at his home. I thought at first that he was just saying it so that he could stay, because he likes it at Whisper. But then I learned that Joyce had been thrown in jail and was under court order to repay one million shillings upon release. And his brothers were not around to care for him.

Lisa Lai in May 2012 with Derick, beside smiling grandmother Joyce

Side note: The resiliency of children never ceases to amaze me. Derick has been one of the most loving, caring little boys I have met out here. He has such a gentle spirit that belies his situation and lack of steady parental figure in his life. Just this past week I was woken up in the middle of the night by screaming coming from across the road. Evidently one of the brothers had come home staggering drunk and had kept Derick out and the women were just enraged. There is the pull to just go in there and pull the child out. But Derick came to school the next day, I asked him how he was, he said "I'm fine auntie".  

So we took Derick in and it was refreshing to be able to care for him beyond school hours. He has such a quiet creativity and playfulness. And he is such a good listener! But as is the program at Whisper, it came the time, when his brothers came back; we took Derick back. They invited us to sit down and I asked to know more about what their current situation was. Then we got the whole story. 

Back in 2011, Joyce's husband left her and took his two daughters from another marriage to live in Kampala. Joyce had many people to support and zero means to do so. So she made an agreement with a sugar cane grower to rent a portion of her land out and in return was compensated with one million shillings. Word ended up getting back to the estranged husband and he came back; very upset that she would do this. Though Joyce has been married to him for twenty years, the wife he had before her was married to him for forty years and thereby her daughters had more claim to the land than Joyce did. The husband said she had no right to make that sort of decision. There was a big fight (New Year's Day) and he had the sugar cane removed and the grower demanded the compensation back. Obviously the money was not there any longer and the grower took Joyce to court. They found her guilty and put her in prison for one year and commanded she pay the grower back the one million upon her release. 

All of this is very distressing to hear. Joyce is being completely railroaded and the people in her corner do not have the resources to help her. They have enlisted a lawyer who is confident they could fight these charges, but they do not have the full two hundred thousand shillings necessary to retain him. When Joyce gets out, they are going to sort out a payment plan for her to pay the one million shillings back, but with no income and resources, how will she possibly be able to? 

I don't even know what to say. I have seen so many countless women mistreated in a variety of ways. It is heartbreaking every time. They have no education, they have numerous generations of people to support and often, they are abandoned by the person who promised to travel this life with them.

We are still researching the situation and will do whatever possible for Joyce Wasira, but the road for her will continue to be an uphill one. 

Blog written by volunteer Sienna Holden

Prayers go to Kawala Harriet from Bugembe

After taking this photo
she visited doctor about her condition.  

On Tuesday Whisper was contacted to urgently go and see a young lady called Kawala Harriet in Bugembe village.

Harriet is a beautiful young mother of three children. The youngest is only 11 month old and had to stop breast feeding 8 month ago because Harriet health condition worsen, once what started like a toothache and at the same time a pimple just right next to her right eye.

Harriet with her last born child, 2012

Year and half ago she was treated unsuccessfully for her tooth infection which has not healed properly. She also said that she developed a small pimple and after that all face swollen. On the photo above, she has already felt her face swollen, so she visited a doctor who prescribed antibiotics for her. They helped to take the swelling down, however some wound remind and ever since her immunity failed to heal it.

The wound produces lots of pus and it as enlarging until she lost the whole right cheeks, half of her nose and right eye.

Harriet suffers unbearably. It is extremely difficult for her to eat, because the wound has broken into her mouth, so the food just leaks out through the wound. This girl needs help and I cannot sit here knowing there is such a young lady dying alive slowly...

There is a great amount of unpleasant smell around her, because her face is rotting!!

She needs lots of vitamins and good food to strengthen her immunity. Her mother and her sister are the ones caring for her. They applied some local herb on the top of the wound, which made it dry, but it is not healing from inside and they fail to go to any specialist because they simply do not have the money.

She also informed us of some tablets she was  given, of which they think it must have been helping because she could feel some healing within the wound. However they could not afford the tablets as each tablet was 10.000 shillings = £2.50 (people in Uganda survive on $1 a day. )

We hope to take her to the main hospital he in Jinja with her papers, and then see if we can do some proper blood test which can diagnose the bacteria and her  condition.

I want to believe that she will survive and she will once live a life with hope.

The least we could do is to buy for her some 24l of long lasting milk, 5kg of sugar, 20 kg of rice, 10 kg of beans, oil, 2kg of onion, garlic, 2kg of passion fruits, 3 pineapples, bag of oranges, lemons, a kilo of meat, half kilo of ginger , painkillers, disinfectant, gloves and some cotton for cleaning the wound. All that at around £31.

Whisper managed to contact the biggest newspapers in Uganda called New Vision, who promised to come on Tuesday to take her story, which we hope can help to get more people involved around the country with her treatment.

For now, we all pray for this young mother (she is only 25 years old), so she can have lots of faith, strength, and not losing any hope. she is a great fighter to fight up to now, and I believe there is a good reason for that.

Thank you very much for supporting Whisper. 
Any small financial donation helps to those who you wouldn't think it can help. 

Only a small smile given to the people through our village outreach work, gives a hope which is what we all are looking for. And it's free. 


Veronika 

Whisper's Day Starts with Breakfast

One of the reasons, why our Whisper children are ever happy with a great health record and quick health recovery, is because of the first meal of the day. 

From the Day 1 we serve to all our children - including malnourished babies  - a millet porridge - gluten free & one of the healthiest and most powerful grains. It stimulates the healthy development of good bacteria because of its probiotics properties. 

It is very high in fiber & protein which help the digestive system and give a great energy for concentration at school. Millet provides 1/4 of the required daily amount of Magnesium. It is also rich in Niacin (Vitamin B), Cooper & Manganese.

It contains tryptophan which helps to a good mood, appetite and sleep regulation. 

Apart of all those great health benefits, it also contains lots of vitamins and other minerals.

We supply 90kg of millet every month to more than 80 children. 

We mix fresh milk with water and we serve it with a cocoa powder or cinnamon mixed with sugar and butter or we pour a spoon of honey over the porridge.

For severely malnourished children, we mix in butter or vegetable fat, g-nut paste, raw eggs, sugar & honey.

It does miracles.