We are very sad to report that Nilaveni has died.

Nilaveni's short life has ended.

She was admitted to our Hospice on the 9th February. Nilaveni was just 10 years old. She had been referred to our social workers by a village midwife who had noticed how very thin and sick she was. She was living with distant  relations who were itinerant basket makers, travelling from village to village, selling their wares. Nobody had suspected that she might be suffering from HIV or even TB.
Our staff took her to be tested and she was started on treatment. However, Nilaveni was so far advanced towards AIDS that she was unable to respond to the drugs she was given.

We can only take some comfort to know that her last two months in our Hospice were among loving carers and understanding fellow patients.
Nilaveni was befriended by a lilttle girl of her own age and was delighted to receive a teddy bear from one of our visiting donors.

Brighter Future arranged for Nilaveni's  body to be taken to her grandmother,   paid for all the funeral expenses and for the traditional dinner that is held on the 11th day after her death. Our staff were present at the ceremony. 

School

Bags and Desks

 The majority of Indian school children sit on the floor to study. They have an allotted space  to sit cross-legged on the floor with their satchels. The satchels are

heavy with all their text and exercise books as there is no where to leave them at school - no desk or locker. The bags soon collapse under the weight of the books, burst their locks or seams.

Little children graduate from a plastic bag to a real one!

The children are delighted when they get a new school bag. The youngest children use polythene bags and are very proud of the day when they get a real school bag.They have to take all their text and exercise books to school each day. They can't leave them anywhere at school so one sees children weighed down by heavy school bags. Even children who go to private schools can be seen sitting, spread out in rows across the playground,revising at exam times.Their satchels and bags are enormous.

Smiles at being given a new school bag
 from a sponsor in Wales. 

 Seventy five per cent of India's population is rural and they eat, sleep, work and play on the floor. Some have hard wooden beds, like tables with short legs, that are very useful for storing things underneath.  Others sleep on charpoys, an arrangement of wood and string, which is light to carry around and can be put to a variety of uses, from stretchers to drying the grain.

The great event last week was the arrival of a lorry load of school 'desks'.

They are more like long thin tables, as there is no storage space in them, but they come with benches to sit on.

A private school in Visakhapatnam had donated the desks to Victor.





 They need some repairs and will have to be varnished but this can be done for less than £20.
The thirty desks will be shared out between Prem Nivas, Shanti Nivas and the Rainbow Boy's home.

The children insisted on posing for photos.