Thursday, May 01, 2008

A Breadwinner at 15....


Tiyamike's picture doesn't look like that of a 15-year old teenager. He looks much older and mature. At such a young age of 13, he and his siblings were orphaned by a father who died of AIDS and later their mother who was infected with the HIV virus.

Tiyamike had to stop school and grow up fast to be breadwinner and support his four siblings. It's still quite shocking to realize that a family of 5 has to live on $5 a month while working 9 hours a day.

When I read that UNICEF has reached these children from Malawi, I honestly wondered where that place was and thought it must be far away. I never heard of it and had to google its location. It's in Africa and the country has 1 million orphans, about half of whom have lost one or both parents to AIDS.

Helping 1 million orphans is a big task. Tiyamike and his siblings are among the fortunate ones reached by UNICEF. A year and a half ago, the Tiwasamale Community-Based Child Care Centre identified Tiyamike’s family as a child-headed household in need of urgent assistance. I'm sure there are many more like them who need help, especially the innocent ones who have no one in the family like Tiyamike who can help support or take care of them.

3 comments:

Matthew May said...

Beautiful post Lylin. I can completely understand what you meant, when you said you wondered where that place was, happens to me a lot. And that is sad, because there are many places around the world that get no media coverage, and basically does not exist to the rest of the world. Thank God for organizations like UNICEF. :)

Thank you for continuing to spread the word, you are a wonderful humanitarian :)

LYLIN said...

Matt, I honestly wish I could do more. But I hope blogging about these things does help to spread the word around. Thanks for dropping by :)

Sustenance Scout said...

Lylin, it helps! Thanks for writing about this and for all you do, especially with everything else you have going on. Thinking of you and wishing you a Happy Mother's Day from Denver! Hugs, K.