Try to imagine living in a bleak institution from birth, spending 8760 hours in your first year of life laying in a crib. Imagine being kindergarten age and still the size of a toddler due to malnutrition. Imagine being transferred to an internat orphanage at age 7 where as the newest and youngest child you'll cry your eyes out as you adjust to life with a couple of hundred kids up to the age of 17… slowly losing any hope of finding a family. Puberty and maturity comes late, and at age 16 you have very, very few of the social, educational or life skills required to survive in the real world.
Now imagine leaving the internat, the only “home” that you have known.
You own nothing, you have no money, no family and with an education that is equivalent to about 8th grade at best. You have very few options available to you.
Perhaps you dreamed of been a ballet dancer, but you will have to become a seamstress.
Maybe you wanted to be a teacher, instead you will have to learn how to lay bricks.
And even then the obstacles are huge.
When the heat goes off in winter and the temperatures plummets to -15 degrees, you shiver in your bed, huddled in a leaky room in a trade school. Your immune system is suppressed due to lack of adequate nutrition and you are far more vulnerable to the scourges of tuberculosis and other illnesses. If you have a medical crisis you have no savings to fall back on and no family to help out.
Envision trying to prepare a meager meal with no kitchen equipment – you wait in line to borrow a pot, heating the water slowly over a shared flame.
There is no one out there who cares. No one to help you. No one to comfort you when you are ill. Quite simply, you are all alone.
Perhaps a group of five or six friends from work or your church or your street would be prepared to contribute 8 dollars each?
The vulnerable graduate would go from been alone to having a “virtual family” caring for them from afar.
Please consider sponsoring a graduate by clicking here.
Sponsor a Graduate Orphan. With your help, An Orphan Smiles.
Copyright © 2008 An Orphan Smiles.