Visiting the children at the slums…their home
The volunteers went with Patrick and William who run and manage Raising up hope to the slums where the children from their orphanage have come from. As their orphanage is full up, they still go into the slums to help out the children who are living there.
Walking through the slums with our guides and Patrick, we watched and walked alongside young children and teenagers who slept in cardboard boxes, in mud and sewage, who lived as prositutes to survive their next meal, who scavenged from garbage bins for food, or who would raid the local hotel bins for scraps.
We walked by children laughing, dancing to their music playing from speakers, and children crawling into the side of small shacks to get shelter. We passed young teenagers smoking and drinking and also those who were happy to see us with big smiles on their faces.
We were taken with great caution for our own health and safety, through parts of the slum which were easier for us to walk through, but at the same time, aware that we were being kept safe, and those around us weren’t. We had been told that many children had lost their lives in a local canal, due to being chased by the police and as we walked the children showed us where they slept, between bin bags and dirty wet, muddy floors.
We walked for just 15 minutes and saw for our own eyes, just a small glimpse of the environment that the children live in. When getting back on the bus we were able to change our clothes, making sure we were clean and free of any germs, using our antibacterial hand washes, stopping off at a ‘well presented’ wash room to wash our hands etc with water, just to make sure we were extra clean, getting back onto the bus to describe where we had been as ‘horrific’. People live here 24 hours a day…we went for 15 minutes and then had the chance to make sure we were clean with new clothes on within 15 minutes of leaving the area on our bus.
“Yes, makes you think doesn’t it”
