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.
Pranitha, Vasavi, Anil and Sanyasi, who came to The Rainbow Home in 2004, as little 6 yr olds who had never been to school, are now college students. They are at the equivalent of our Sixth Form Colleges, called Junior, or Inter-college, in India, having passed the national 10th class exams. They are also known as '10+2' and have to pass the 11th year exams to go on to the 12th and final year which is equivalent to our 'A' levels.
Now we have to find £250 for each of them!
