A week at Shanti Nivas.

I have been at Shanti Nivas for the last week.

Thompson House and the Pickford Memorial Hospice are at Brighter Future's  very rural site called Shanti Nivas. The site is 2 km from the main road which runs the 28 km from Vizianagaram to Gajapatinagaram, where our other children's homes are situated. 

Thompson House has 26 HIV infected children at present. The children go to the very good government schools in Ompalli village, just 2km away. The older children cycle to school and the younger ones go in our auto-rickshaw.  

After school the children have a teacher to supervise their homework and help when necessary. The schools were closed for about two months recently due to the political unrest and strikes. Now the children have to go to school every day, including Sundays so that they can complete the syllabus in time for the end of year exams. They don't complain and are very aware of the opportunities that education gives them. Our children are often in classes below their age group because they were refused education as young children when it was discovered that their parents, or they, had HIV. Some had never been to school before coming to Brighter Future homes.







We made Christmas cards  and the five children who had arrived after last Christmas made a peg doll figure to go in the crib.

Little white lights were strung up over the crib 

Although they had very little spare time the children were very good at offering to help me prepare the vegetable garden for seed sewing. The children sewed seeds  of spinach, aubergine, lady's finger and several different kinds of beans.  Some seeds had started coming up up after five days.

The hospice has 15 beds but there are usually about 10 patients, both HIV/AIDS adults and children. The number fluctuates from week to week as some become well enough to go home, others sadly die. Many of the patients are suffering from TB. Some are referred to us because they have a short time to live, others have complications because they did not take their anti retroviral medicines for a number of reasons. All are anaemic and malnourished.

I took some children's books for them to read, or to be read from.  Most of our patients cannot read or write, If they cannot write they have to 'sign' documents with an indelible ink thumbprint, right had for men and left for ladies. 

The nurse and one of our children read stories to some patients. 

One lady who was accompanying her deaf and dumb daughter, asked me if I had some Christian books.so I took her a a very nicely illustrated Children's Bible in Telugu.

We played games. Memory games and dominoes, simple jigsaw puzzles and learning to recognise numbers puzzles.

If we had a large screen TV, with a facility to play CD's, they could watch folk stories educational CD's and animated children's films.

There are always jobs that need doing and I go around looking for them! Getting new washing lines put up, cleaning walls that have become grubby, teaching children to use the computer, seeing what's broken! There are never enough hours in the day for me. 

On Sunday 14th  I moved to Prem Nivas to start work on their vegetable garden plots.

Our Count Down to Christmas at Prem Nivas.

December the first was World Aids Awareness Day . Some of the big boys from Prem Nivas went, by themselves on the bus, to the start of the rally,  where Victor Director Uncle was waiting for them. It is an annual event  in Vizianagaram, at which government officers show their faces etc and make speeches. The children, as usual, had to wait around for the politicians and officials to arrive, as these things are always delayed by the late arrival of said officialdom.

Our  five boys joined the march to the speech venue along with local nursing students, boy scouts, army cadets etc  They carried a Brighter Future Banner. I used to walk with them but haven’t bothered for the past few years because all the hanging around. When there is a good Collector (Chief Government Officer) things are more efficient. 

The new collector is,  hopefully, an efficient and interested man. 

Victor went  to introduce himself and is planning to invite various government officials, connected with children and health, to our Christmas Lunch at Shanti Nivas. 

Only 20 days till the Christmas party! All the cards are finished and on their way to the UK. Hari, whom I call my DIY man, came to ask me if he could make the Christmas tree again this year. 

He cut straight pieces of bamboo and split them into thinner pieces about 3 feet long. Having laid out the sticks into a tree shape, measured them and bound them together, Hari and Janaki (our amateur electrician) fixed the tree frame to an upright trunk and planted the tree in a flower pot. I thought the children might like the tree near their rooms but they insisted that it should be near the main gate.

 Last night they wound green lights around the tree frame and attached a star that my daughter had given me. Janaki connected the wires to an  extension box and the cable runs though my window to the power outlet socket. 



I'm thinking of getting the Primary children to make red chinese lanterns to go on the tree. I will have to rack my brains to remember back 70 odd years to when we made them during the  war, when tree decorations were not available! 

Lanterns were made by the first 3 classes.

Then we  got our crib out and redressed some of the peg doll figures. 

Hari cut the bamboo and carefully worked out the spacing, Janaki helped with the wiring and we had several helpers to hang the frame over the parapet .

Nurse Laxmi bought a big star to go on the roof.

We decided to try something more adventurous on the parapet of the Main building.  Words instead of loops!

After school the older children helped the young er ones to make crepe paper decorations 

The children of the Primary School 

T.

New hymns to learn, drama and dances to learn!

It's a pleasure?

Reading before  school begins

Brighter Future Primary School ( decorated by the children).

Our Indian children learn to read at school but they rarely read for pleasure. As an ex teacher I am very keen that they should regard books as a pleasurable experience, as a source of information, as a link to improving all their studies.

Nagamani, Prasana and Bangaruju

Last year Brighter Future bought lots of colourful story books in Telugu from a specialist educational printers in Hyderabad. Such books are usually only available in English, for children who go to private schools which teach through the medium of English.

Sharmila

           We chose books for all educational levels. From little books with only one or two words on a page to 'classical' stories like Aesop's Fables, Dr Jekyl and Mr Hyde and The Little Match Girl. All written in Telugu. Some in both English and Telugu, the language of the state of Andhra Pradesh’s 90 million inhabitants.

Bhagya

When I am staying in India the Prem Nivas Primary School children read books before school starts .Outside when it is fine, in class when it rains.

Sunita

Little books for little children.


Very little children "pretend" read or look at  pictures.

When morning school has finished, and before lunch is ready, the children play with educational toys and games.

Our dear Sanyasi has died

Sanyasi was with us in the Pickford Memorial Hospice for almost a year.

Brighter Future found Sanyasi, his brother and mother, in November 2012. Sanyasi and his family lived in a little village in Vizianagaram district. His father was an electrician and had died of AIDS in 2010. Sanyasi was 13 at the time. 
Sanyasi's mother took him to the doctors in 2009 because he had diarrhoea. It was confirmed that he had HIV. Sanyasi was started on TB treatment, a 6 months course that must be 'observed', ie. given by health professionals. He took the treatment for only 2 months. It is fairly common for TB patients to drop out of treatment as they begin to feel better and many are lost to treatment for this reason. In Sanyasi's case it was poverty, and ignorance, that prevented him getting treatment.
Sanyasi's mother had to find work to feed herself and her two sons. She could not afford to go to Vizianagaram to get the drugs for herself and her children. 

Sanyasi was started on another 6 months course for TB, by the government centre, when he came to our hospice   I remember that we were all amazed to find out that Sanyasi was 15 years old. He was so small and thin. Like so many HIV sufferers he had TB. His very muddled government records revealed that he had started TB treatment (at least twice) previously and failed to complete the courses. Sanyasi  was almost certainly MDT-TB, multi drug resistant, and unable to respond to the usual  TB treatment. 

Sanyasi was also co-infected with fungal skin infections, had hardly any hair - indicative of his malnutrition and vitamin deficiency. After a year on Brighter Future's protein rich diet and vitamin supplements, the skin infections were much improved.

 Sanyasi was unable to lie down to sleep or rest. He had developed the habit of sitting up and holding onto some adjacent support, be it a bed head or a railing, so that he could sleep sitting up. His breathing difficulty could be heard and felt as he sat on my knee  watching some of the Sue Davies Sports Ground event.

He smiled happily when we gave him his first toy to play with and also at Christmas when he asked for, and got, a remote controlled car!

He liked oranges, mango juice  and Victor made sure he got whatever he asked for.He returned to our hospice even thinner and more wasted. The hospital had told his mother to take him home to die. Brighter Future staff took it in turns to stay overnight at the hospital with him and provided for the meals and whatever  needed buying.

Sanyasi's mother stayed with him in our hospice whenever she could,   especially recently. She is also suffering relapses from her own HIV. 

His brother,Chakravarthi, was able to see him every day as he was in our Thompson House home in the same Shanti Nivas site. Sanyasi used to tell his 2 yrs younger brother, Chakravarthi,  how important it was for him to go to school. and to study well.

Brighter Future made and provided  all the burial arrangements for Sanyasi. 
Chakravarthi has gone to stay with his mother for a while while they prepare for the religious festival that follows about two weeks after a death. 
A tree will be planted to remember Sanyasi in the Shanti Nivas Memorial Garden.

[Two million people die from MDT-TB every year. In 2009 the Global TB Control reported that one in four TB deaths were HIV related and that less than 1% of MDT-TB sufferers were getting the expensive drugs they needed, especially in resource poor countries.  Many also fail to respond to the  recommended treatment.]

All children safe from cyclone Phailin

At 6pm on Sunday Victor confirmed that all Brighter Future children and staff are well and not affected by cyclone Phailin which hit Southern Odisha. Our Pastor's brother lives in a colony near Behrampur in the cyclone path, so he will take a team of our staff with him to help out at the colony. They will take food, cooking oil, matches and drinking water packets.
The surge in sea level meant that many fishermen in the Srikakalum District lost their nets and mud huts - their livlihood.

 Round thatched huts and dried fish in a Srikakulam village Victor and I surveyed in 2006.

Political rumblings in Andhra Pradesh

It was decided by the ruling Congress party  that Andhra Pradesh could follow the fashion created by Bihar and other states and be cut into smaller pieces. This is referred to as 'bifurcation' in the delightful Victorian English that is still used, especially in legal circles.

BUT there are more than 5 million people living in the part that does not include the state capital of Hyderabad,who do not want dividing from the rest of the state into the new part to be known as Seemandhra. There are also a large number of residents in this coastal Seemandhra who want to be a third area called Ryalseema.
Various ministers of the A P state are on hunger strike and because the local Vizianagaram minister is thought to have changed sides in the argument. Some local people poured onto the streets and threatened his properties in the area.A curfew was declared.

All over the state electricity supplies have been disrupted so health services, buses railways and petrol supplies came to a standstill. The big government hospital in Visag is running on generators that burn kerosene at enormous cost.The general mayhem has been going on for 4 days now!

Victor says that the Rainbow children can't go home for the Dusshera religious holiday, to their colonies, because there is no transport to get home on.  If they stay at DMC and Rainbow there is the problem of water and food, as farmers cant bring food to the markets.  Shanti Nivas and Prem Nivas have water wells that have the newly installed hand pumps to draw water and both are growing some vegetables.

The central government will have to intervene and all will return to normal.

A blind lady was brought to the Hospice.

The lady in the red sari is called Gouri. She is completely blind, with cataracts in both eyes. The lady who is standing with her  very kindly brought her to Brighter Future at the suggestion of our Prem Nivas Nurse. They got talking on the bus when Nurse Laxmi was taking some of the Prem Nivas children to the government centre to get their HIV treatment. Gouri is HIV+ so Nurse Laxmi  had probably seen her at  the Government ART centre.

The two ladies live in Gajapathinagaram,  the nearest large village to Prem Nivas. Victor said that Gouri lives in a ‘toy’ hut, for which she pays 100 rupees a month to the lady who is in the photo with her. I think it must be a very small hut or even an outhouse as room rents normally cost more than 1000 rupees. Victor didn’t ask Gouri whether she  gets a pension of 200rp a month or whether she begs for her living.

Victor has spoken to the surgeon who does cataract operations for us on our leprosy patients. He has agreed to operate privately on Gouri in ten day’s time. As Gouri  is HIV+ he will perform only her operation on that day and the operating theatre will be closed for the rest of the day.

A new boy arrives at the hospice.

Abraham

 Abraham is from Bapuji Leprosy Colony.
The early members of the Brighter Future's Family of Sponsors and Donors may remember that in February 2005 we adopted a very neglected leprosy colony.   Brighter Future was able to bring some help to the elderly, and mostly very deformed, residents.
 Brighter Future immediately set to work on the essentials - water, food and medical care. We made the open well safe to use. We installed a new, deeper, bore well so that there could be clean water at all seasons. We supplied basic food grains to supplement their routine begging. Brighter Future provided a man to dress the patient's open sores and teach them how to care for, and avoid, these wounds.

The next big step was to provide safe and hygienic housing to replace the dilapidated, snake infested and broken rooms they were living in. The money to build new houses was raise by supporters of Brighter Future in the UK. This was Brighter Future's first foray into building houses for leprosy patients. It attracted the attention of the local government and The Leprosy Mission and they both now co-operate in building homes on other leprosy colonies in our area. Brighter Future liaises and supervises this housebuilding.

You are probably wondering what this has to do with Abraham!  
 His parents lived in Bapuji colony and were very grateful to the couple who donated the money to build their house. The couple also remembered Prasad and his wife at Christmas. They were overwhelmed to receive the first card - they had never been sent a letter from anyone before. Prasad and his wife have now died, Abraham is their son.

Our dear little Sanyasi is surviving against all the odds.

He has been so very ill with a lung infection.This on top of his TB and HIV, asthma and skin infections. The government hospital in Visakhapatnam, the only place that severely ill HIV/AIDS patients can be admitted to, sent him to a TB hospital. There he was treated for a few weeks before being returned to the main hospital. 

Sanyasi's mother stayed with him whenever possible.  Brighter Future staff took it in turns to visit Sanyasi and stay with him. The hospital then told Sanyasi's mother to take him home and prepare for his death.

After a few days at home Sanyasi came back to our hospice. His mother has to go out to work and there is no one to look after Sanyasi.At our hospice we have full time staff, Sanyasi's younger brother, Chakravarthi, can come and keep him company when he is not in school. Sanyasi's mother is welcome to stay with him for as long as she likes.

We are so thankful that he is still alive, despite being so painfully thin now. We give him whatever he fancies to eat. His favourite requests are, oranges, mango drink, tea, biscuits and chapatis!

From Bees to Support for Six

One of  our new sponsors wrote to me to say that as she had a bad back, she had given up bee keeping. She sold some of her equipment and wanted to give Brighter Future the £250 raised. It was about the time when our young people were qualifying to get into college. 

Victor told me that Brighter Future was going to find it difficult to find the £250 to £275 a year per student that going  college entailed.

 That was when I had the idea of asking our 'bee' lady if we could use her gift to finance the fees of one of our students. She is going to support Swathi during her Computer and English studies. 

At that time I was also able to make contact with a friend whose email address I had lost. Sheer coincidence! I sent her the July Newsletter and as an Open University student herself, she very generously  sponsored two students - Vasavi and Sandeep.

Another lady read of our dilemma  and has offered to sponsor Anil in his  '10+ 2'  (like A level) studies.

A local Bury St Edmunds resident friend regularly holds sales in his tiny front garden. He had a larger one the other week, for Brighter Future. Sometimes he grows plants to sell, at other times he sells things people give him. The £259 he has raised will support another student, Jyothi, in her 12th year. 

A friend, from many years ago, was willing to sponsor Swathi's degree course. Swathi wanted to be a nurse but as she is HIV+ this is not possible. Swathi is, therefore, spending one year learning computer studies and written English.  My friend will instead support Sanyasi, another of our young students.

We are so thankful to these good people who are giving these marginalised young people, from leprosy colonies and station platforms and HIV/AIDS orphans, the chance of further education.

Our Little Patient Appalnaidu

He is now happy and bouncing around after having treatment on his neck for an infected gland. It became very enlarged as part of his TB. Instead of getting TB in his lungs his lymph glands get infected and they have to be, aspirated, or drained, by syringe.  

Meanwhile at our HIV Finding and Feeding project .. 
..we gave medicines and

food parcels to 47 women in July. Five new cases were found, 3 women and two men.

Six months ago we helped 17 women to apply for extra rice  - a ration of 35kg a month instead of the usual 4kg for below poverty line ration book holders. Sadly only 4 people were granted this 35kg. Although they all qualify, (widowed, below poverty line, low caste, and low income) the process of granting anything is now in abeyance because the whole of the coastal region's government workers are now on strike because of the division of the state into two new states. Victor says there are no buses, trains, or government departments working!   

Four children from The Rainbow Boy's Home and D M C House go to College

If these  Children had not been given a loving home, with educational and medical care, they may well have been begging on the streets  . Brighter Future gave them a home.

They have finished High School and have qualified to study what is known as 10+2.

These exams are the equivalent of our 'A levels at a Sixth Form College. Sanyasi, Anil, and Vasavi  have started their studies as the academic year begins in June.  Praneetha's parents have moved to a leprosy colony near Visakhapatnam so Praneetha may go to a college near them. We send them to private colleges to make sure that they have the best teachers. They have to pass year 11 exams before they can continue into the 12 th year.

They still live at DMC House and the Rainbow Home, going to college on cycles if not too far away. Sanyasi is studying Maths, Physics and Chemistry. Vasavi and Anil have chosen Commerce, Economics and Civics.

Sandeep sailed through his exams and is now in the final year 12 studying Maths, Physics and Chemistry. Jyothi and Manohar had to retake a subject but are now also in the 12th. Manohar has enrolled in a college near his parent's leprosy colony, as he wants to keep an eye on his family. Brighter Future will continue to support him in his studies.

Sandhya failed her subjects so we will find some less academic course for her.

Congratulations to our students !

Swathi is our very first student to pass her  final exams after two years at a college in the village where Prem Nivas home is situated. Swathi now has the equivalent of A levels in Biology, Physics and Maths. Swathi has had to work really hard because when she was 8 she was asked to leave her village school because her parents had died of AIDS. In those days there was no treatment available to slow down the progress of HIV to AIDS. Swathi was often sick and her grandmother asked Brighter Future to admit her to Prem Nivas, our first home for HIV infected children, in October 2006. At first we taught the children ourselves because the local schools would not take them and no teacher would work for us.
I remember going to give a talk, translated by Victor, to several hundred High School children, and their teachers, gathered in the school playground. My message was that you can't catch HIV/AIDS by sitting next to one of our children, sharing their books, playing with them or eating with them. Swathi was admitted to the High school and now all our children go there when they pass class 5.
Swathi has long wanted to be a nurse but because she is HIV+ this is not possible.

Our Hospice at Shanti Nivas

A warm welcome to all the new supporters who are running the London 10K for children and adults who are suffering from HIV/AIDS!

There are many undiagnosed cases of HIV/AIDS in the rural villages where Brighter Future does its grass roots work. We conduct discrete surveys  to identify households where there have been deaths, where children are often sick or have dropped out of school, or where there is TB, to see if the people have HIV. In the last five years we have identified 359 HIV/Aids victims. last year we found 66 new cases. We take them to be tested and offer practical help - giving them medicnes and food parcels,and applying for ration books and pensions for them.

The most sick people are taken into our new Hospice, though for some it is too late, like this little girl. 

A seventeen year old boy died this month.His uncle had been buying him a 'false cure'. 

This 15yr. old boy is severely malnourished and has HIV, TB , asthma and skin infections all over his body. 

          HIV infected widowed       mothers learning to play a memory game. 

All our patients are malnourished and anaemic. They are weak and suffer from aching limbs, and frequent fevers.Some have kidney  complications, others have advanced TB.

It costs £400 a month to run the Hospice. 

We hope that this year's London 10K run will raise this money. 

Tell your supporters how they will be saving lives by sponsoring you !

Too poor to travel to the hospital to get medicine for her son and herself

The Hospice at Shanti Nivas

Last week we admitted  mother and her son. They were registered as suffering form HIV in 2008 and 2011 respectively.In 2008 the nearest centre to their village for receiving check up and  retroviral therapy was in Visakhapatnam -  - about 100 kilomenters from their home and a long and slow journey by bus, Appal, the little boy was only 15kg in weight and he was started on a 'baby' dose in July 2011, when both mother and son were admitted into the hospital because they were so weak.

His weight now is only 14.5kg - 14 months later.

The little boy stopped taking ART in January 2012 because his mother could not afford to take him to get his medicine. It was difficult enough for her to go begging for food locally for them to eat. She came to know that there was now a nearer hospital to get ART but she has not been for a year. The little boy goes to school, he is in the second class, so at least he gets one free school meal. Mother goes begging for idli or rice - each day to a different shop. They are both very weak, anaemic and Appall has ringworm and fungal infections all over his body.

We will give them a high protein diet, treat his fungal infections, do TB tests and get them onto ART again.

Another patient is a man of 53 who was recently diagnosed and was referred to us by the ART centre because he has stopped taking his ART as it made him feel sick, and he was suffering from leg pains ,fever.and anaemia.

We explained about the side effects of the strong drugs and that the symptoms would lessen over the next few weeks if  he increased his protein intake , took rest and had clean food and water.