Keep a Child Alive

Reflections on South Africa - Heroes to me.

Dan, Jess and I returned from South Africa on Monday evening and it’s been quite a trip getting back to everyday life here in the U.S. This was my second time in South Africa and I can’t tell you how good it felt to be back immersed in the love of the people there. There is something about the people in South Africa - how they welcome you into their homes like family, will tell you stories and stories about their lives, will cook the most delicious foods for you and the hugs they give are just beyond! I miss them all dearly as if I just left my family, well I guess I did.

This past trip was to show some of our KCA College students how Keep a Child Alive works on the ground. KCA works to provide anti-retroviral treatment at no cost to patients at the Blue Roof along with comprehensive care, we work with Bobbi Bear to give abused children a voice in ZA, we take care of orphaned children at Agape and give them a loving home and help Ikageng & Mum Carol to be a family to 1715 children who have lost their parents and live in child-headed households. For me, watching Dan & Jess immersed in the South African culture and embrace these children and talk with patients was phenomenal and that was what the trip was all about. I know that these two will take what they saw with them and carry it into everything they do.

There is one moment from our trip to ZA that I must share. On our last day in ZA, we joined Mum Carol on home visits to 4 child-headed households that are under the care of Ikageng. These are households of children who have lost their parents and only children are left in the families. Our very last visit was to see brothers Arthur and James on the very edge of the township in Soweto. They have lost both their parents and have no other family to live with - they were left with the shack their parents owned. It is at the bottom of a little hill which means all the rain runs into their home, they have one bed, one sofa and a stove top lit with a match. But let me tell you, it was the most immaculate house I’ve ever seen for boys! Arthur is 19 years old and is in his second year of accounting at uni and lives in residency (funded by Ikageng) which leaves his younger brother James at home alone. James just passed his matric (high school final exams) and we are very proud of him! He has such big dreams and wants to go to school to study Marketing and also play soccer. Even with all their loss, these boys were all smiles and have the biggest dreams in the world. This describes the beauty and hope that these children somehow maintain amongst everything that has happened to them. These children are heroes to me. Ikageng makes these dreams possible and continues to do so for so many children of Soweto. That is why Mum Carol is a superwoman to us at KCA and a mother to the hundreds of children at Ikageng.

I am so thankful to be apart of the Keep a Child Alive family and coming back here to NYC just means that I get to continue my work for these children and families. I urge you in this new year of 2010 to think about these children and the stories we’ve told from our trips and how you can help them. Text ALIVE to 90999 to donate $5 to Keep a Child Alive or head to www.keepachildalive.org to make a tax-deductible donation online. I think you know what you have to do next.

All my love,

xo Busiswe (my Zulu name) / Louise