Blessings Lost His Mother to Cholera

Blessings

Blessings is eight years old and lost his mother to cholera last week. Our hearts hurt not only for him, but also for his family, for his village, and for his country. It’s difficult to mourn properly for a death that seems so unnecessary because we’re sharing our grief with the realization that this could have been avoided. You probably don’t know much about cholera because you don’t need to. You have clean running water to drink, to flush your toilet, to bathe in, and to cook with. Far too many people in Malawi do not, and that’s the root cause of the current outbreak there. Blessings is in our program and has access to the clean water on our campus, but his family still lives in a home without that luxury.

Cholera is an extremely contagious and aggressive water borne bacteria that usually originates with feces. It’s mostly a third world problem because of the lack of flushing toilets. Once it gets into an exposed water source, it can infect the place where people routinely wash clothes, bathe, and even drink. According to the World Health Organization, it has been endemic in Malawi since 1998 and breaks out during the rainy season each year. Our ultimate hope is to eventually eradicate it, starting with the families in our program.

We have been educating our students and their families about health and hygiene since the inception of our program, and we were able to install sinks and flushing toilets at our facility last year. Unfortunately, the village outside our walls still uses streams and ponds for everything we use water for, including drinking. Blessing’s mother is no exception. Snoden took her to the hospital last week after she complained of stomach pain. She passed away less than forty-eight hours later. She left a husband and seven children behind. Blessings’ father is asking for our help to care for his whole family as they recover from this shock.

We are working diligently to care for the children in our program as well as for their families, but we need far more resources than are currently available to have that kind of impact. I hope it’s apparent that we are not just improving lives but actually saving them. Every dollar you donate has a critical purpose and may mean the difference between life and death for a child or one of his family members. Thank you for taking part in this effort, and please consider sharing what we do with someone you know. We have tried to make it easy through our new social media presence. You can visit our website at www.hugsfortomorrow.org, and we’re also on Facebook and Instagram as Hugs for Tomorrow.

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