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!