STORIES
Life is very fragile. Today, we can all celebrate the life we have, but in the next minute, it can be lost. So much can be lost in the blink of an eye, and there’s nothing we can do about it but keep going.
This year, we have been blessed with the opportunity to impact certain lives, but we have also lost some very close individuals whom we believed would change the world once their dreams were fulfilled.
Today, I would like to share a story about a little girl who was dear to the Tapiwa Nkhoma Foundation. On the 11th of August this year, we traveled to a village known as Kalimira Village, T/A Santhe in Kasungu. We received news that there was a little girl who was struggling and was on the verge of dying. The people from the village sent us pictures of the girl, and from what we saw, we couldn’t hesitate but to go and see the situation. Our executive director went along with two other members of TNF. When we arrived, we engaged with the village chief and other elders of the village. They assured us that they had tried everything to help the girl, but to no avail. After all their attempts failed, they decided to just wait for her death. The girl’s uncle pleaded with us to help them arrange for a proper funeral; these people had given up on her even before she was still alive.
At TNF, we believe every child has the right to live and to receive any kind of help needed to live a healthy and happy life. We assured them that the girl would get well and she would live because we came to take her from the village to Kamuzu Central Hospital in Lilongwe. They handed over the girl to us, and we took her to the hospital along with her sister and her aunt. When we arrived at the hospital, the doctors were angry with us for letting the girl get sick to the extent she was in. We later explained to them that we had just found out the previous day and we went to take her. The doctors were in disbelief when they removed the clothes and the bedding she was covered in; even we were shocked and couldn’t believe what we were seeing. Her name was Beatrice Chisoso. Beatrice was an orphan who lost her parents when she was 2 years old and was living with her uncle. Beatrice had a seizure problem, and her guardian stopped getting her pills that prevented her from experiencing these seizures. After it got worse and she was kept on a mat for a month without care, her body developed pressure sores and other unimaginable wounds; her body became something you could call rotten. At some point, the hope we had of her getting better started to fade. The doctors advised us to get honey and a lot of proteins for her. After a week, Beatrice started to get better; she could speak, eat on her own, and the wounds started to heal.
Three weeks later, Beatrice’s body recovered, and the pressure sores healed. When her guardians saw this, they started to complain that they wanted to go back to their village as they were tired of staying at the hospital. After a few days of talking with the doctors and Beatrice’s relatives, a conclusion was made that Beatrice should be taken to a hospital that is nearby her village so that her relatives can tend to other things at their homes. Beatrice was taken back even though, as TNF, we did not agree. The next day when we called her uncle to find out how she was doing at the new hospital, we were told that they had taken her straight back home, the home that had just watched her develop pressure sores, the home that didn’t feed her for close to a month and didn’t attend to her when she needed them. It was heartbreaking to us, but there was nothing we could do. We kept checking on her through phone calls; each week we received bad news, and on the 18th of September 2023, we received news that Beatrice was no more.
It was heartbreaking to bury a child we had hoped would make it and live her life. It was hard for us to help the people that stopped us from helping Beatrice when she was alive. Beatrice died at the age of 12. We believe there are more children out there like Beatrice who want to live, but because they are orphans, they do not receive the help they need. At TNF, we have dedicated our lives to living for the next person, the next child. We believe together we can save these children and guide them to be a better generation. Let’s go out there and find these kids living with Autism, mental disorders, orphans, and all underprivileged children and bring a smile to their face by showing them love.
