Our Hospice

Brighter Future has a Hospice at Shanti Nivas.

It was built at the same time as the children's home  and was funded by the Pickford Memorial Trust. David Pickford was a long time friend of our then Chairman, Danny Parisipogula. David was a trustee of BFIT for many years. The Hospice was built and funded by his family. as a memorial to David. It  opened in August 2012.

The need for a hospice, where mothers and children could be admitted together to avoid separation, was apparent as the other only centre was up to  a hundred kilometres from our area of opperation. Run by Rotary they only admitted patients for two or three days and would not take children.

The aim of our Hospice is to offer nursing care to HIV/AIDS patients during the acute phases of their illness, to offer support during the periods when patients need to adapt to the severity of starting ART treatment and to offer palliative care for the terminally ill. The dying have often been abandoned by relatives and are homeless. Their alterative can be  to die on the streets.

 Many of our severely ill patients are suffering from co-infection with TB. They may have been only recently diagnosed as having HIV AIDS. The HIV virus goes through 5 recognisable stages until it reaches its terminal AIDS phase.Patients suffer fevers and body pains, weakness, nausea and diarrhoea, especially if they are protein defficient. 

 Malnutrition is endemic among people whose main diet is rice served with only vegetable flavoured water called rasam.Fresh and green vegetables are rarely affordable and if available are cooked for a long time which destroys the vitamin content. Lentils, the main source of protein among traditionally vegetarian people, are very expensive and watered down to go further..

The patients need building up with vitamins and a protein rich diet if they are to tolerate and respond to the anti-retroviral drugs.Our food and drugs bill is therefore naturally large!. 

We have one or two supporters in the UK who contribute £10 a month towards the care of a hospice patient and would dearly like to find more!  
We need to find  funding  or grants.Until recently had some help. from the Right Now Foundation.( who are child orientated). However the numbers of children admitted was declining and the adult admissions increased.  The grant ceased in March 2015. 

To attract a nurse and doctor to work with HIV infected people is difficult and expensive. There is stigma attached to even working with HIV/AIDS patients. 
We have a very good nurse who is experienced in caring for HIV patients and are we are shortly to have a well qualified doctor who will visit the hospice twice a week and be on call at all times.

Over the years I have sent proposals to all the main HIV/AIDS charities. they say carry on with the good work  but they have a policy of not accepting un-solicited proposals and also  like to give to government departments. They want to have large numbers of beneficieries and are not interested in small genuine grass roots organisations like ours. 

We need to find several small trusts able to give grants of a £1000 or more. 

If you have any contacts do let me (pmanya.norris@gmail.com) or Brighter Future International Trust (brighterfuturefriends@gmail.com) know.

To give you some idea of the cost of running the hospice the nurse’s salary is £720 pa., the cleaner and helper £360 each. Medicines vitamins and supplements cost £5000pa and food, electricity and transport account for another £4000pa.We need to find several small trusts able to  give small grants of a £1000 or more.

This year five children have died among loving friends and carers. 
Brighter Future has also paid for them to be transported to their home villages and cremated according to the local custom. 

Congratulations to Sandeep

Sandeep is a student at                                           college . he is studying Engineering. he is delighted to have passed his first year exams with a mark of   %.

The chance of a lifetime!

                    

         

                               

Brighter Future has been caring for many young people since they were first found as 6 or 7 year olds. They were suffering from HIV. Their parents had died of AIDS. Their grandparents were old, very poor or simply could not manage their severe symptoms. There was no treatment available and hundreds of children like them were dying each week. Seeing them today it is hard to believe that they came to Brighter Future as malnourished, undersized children with skin diseases, open wounds, diarrhoea and sickness.

Many of the children had been denied their early years of education by schools, because of thier home circumstances, being orphaned or through the stigma of being being HIV positive.

Brighter Future works in a predominantly agricultural area where literacy is low, unemployment high and the weather a succession of droughts and cyclones. 

When we developed our strategy of caring for HIV+ children we knew that we would need to give them the opportunities that 'normal' children have -  medical care to help them survive, and the chance of education, training and independent living. 

The Problem

In our three homes for HIV children we have a number of boys over the school leaving age, who are behind in their studies, have lost confidence in their ability to catch up with their peers and some who are simply not academically inclined.

Prem Nivas senior boys.

 Rather than suffering from being regarded as backward the young people are capable of taking a technical training. Some have already demonstrated a leaning towards electrical repairs and mechanical problem solving.

The fear, stigma and ignorance attached to HIV infection means that the children cannot get jobs or training if it is known that they are HIV positive. To be skilled and experienced would give them an opening in the local employment market, self- employment or to form a joint venture unit.

The Solution to this problem has been given to Brighter Future India in the form of a grant from The Betty Lawes Foundation

Brighter Future approached the Foundation with a plan to establish a small vocational training unit providing training in electrical and plumbing skills. The area around Vizianagaram is being rapidly developed with private houses and apartments creating a demand for these skills. Victor has identified both a qualified electrician and a local plumbing skilled sanitary ware shop owner, who are willing to train our young people and  employ them when suitable skilled.

We already have a building available on the Shanti Nivas site 5 miles from Vizianagaram. All that would be needed is a small extension, security gates and teaching equipment.

Currently there are 10 boys (over 14 yrs) in need of vocational training from the three HIV+ homes .  

Self-confidence and self-reliance can replace the young people’s earlier sense of failure and helplessness.

With a skill our boys would be able to find employment in the large and growing development of surrounding districts where such skills are in demand, especially in the newly formed State of Andhra Pradesh.

Employment will enable them to break out of the cycle of poverty and avoid the emotionally draining stigma of being HIV+.

We thank the Trustees of the Betty Lawes Foundation for their trust and support in giving this opportunity to our children.