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.