Isaiah’s Umuzi Wothando

April 23 - 24, 2007 Isaiah’s Umuzi Wothando - Isaiah’s Home of Love

Dakotah and I spent a couple of days working with Isaiah’s Umuzi Wothando. This is a home with a vision for abandoned babies in Bulawayo. The vision for the home is to be a halfway house to care for 20-35 babies from newborn to 3.5 years old and arrange for adoption and fostering into families as early as possible and prior to their 4rth birthday. The background for the need for this organization arises from the fact that children are growing up in the hospital, not being cared for or loved because existing orphanages do not take many of these young babies. Right now they have 4 children allowed at the home and they care for another number of children in the hospital. Back at home in Canada most people complain about hospital food. Well here there is none. The hospitals here do not provide food or clothing or general care for the patients. Family or caregivers are expected to come into the hospital and bring food/formula and change the clothing and bedding for the patients. Well these children do not have anyone to do that for them. So the government has designated up to 20 children to Isaiah’s Home to be cared for. There is a fulltime staff member who lives at the hospital to take care of the babies there. Each day a clean load of nappies, sheets and blankets and clothes is brought to the hospital and he collects the dirty laundry from the children once a day and goes back to the home to wash it then returns to the hospital for the night. There is also usually a volunteer position to help out at the hospital. At the home there are two people committed to full time care at the home. One is paid and the other is volunteer. The hospital is very new and modern. It was built by a Japaneese Charitable Organisation around 2004. Whenever a child is found abandoned the police get involved with investigating and trying to find the parents and family then the child is taken to the hospital by Social Welfare to get a medical check. If no relatives are found the child will stay in the hospital. Some times the children will get sent to orphanages but a lot of the time Social Welfare will not spend the time to search for a home or all the spaces have been taken and the baby stays at the hospital. Some of the children have been there for four years growing up sitting in a crib. The nurses keep the kids in their beds all the time so they don’t have to deal with them. Let me remind you these kids aren’t sick. They are perfectly fine just have nowhere else to go. The Social Welfare is supposed to be responsible for adoption services but they don’t have the resources to do that or to look after the children who are in their care.

Isaiah’s home wants to get those children out of the hospital to a place where they can be cared for in a loving environment; a place where their necessities such as food, water and diapers and clothing will be provided. And this will be a much more inviting environment for potential adoptive parents. The four kids who live there are; Moses, who says he’s four years old; Khanyile (Can-ee-lee) who is two years old and very bright; Sara who is 8 months and one of the happiest babies I have met in a long time (Dakotah wanted to take her home with us); and Nomalanga who is 7 months old, she is HIV+ and sick was sick last week so she has been in the hospital for a while too. Some of the others that Isaiah’s house looks after at the hospital are an 8 year old boy who has seizures, he was abandoned; an 8 month old boy, happy as can be; an 18 month old boy with cerebral palsy; a 14 month boy just learning to walk; one boy about 3 and one about 4. Ah then there is sweet little Davis. Davis is a week or two old. This tiny little baby lays in the big crib by himself all day long except for feeding times. It breaks my heart to see that this newborn baby has nobody to cuddle and hug him. And this happens so often here. There is a boy who is in grade six who comes to the gathering when volunteers come to play with the kids. And another boy 18 months old who brought in malnourished. Both of these boys are not under the care of Isaiah’s home but they get the benefits also. The malnourished boy is getting better but the nurses are supposed to be taking care of him. They say that he smiles now but I didn’t see one either days. Both days we were there he was sitting in the same position soaked and soiled with wet bedding under him. Its quite sad. I asked why Isaiah’s house is not taking care of him too and it had something to do with gloves. At least Isaiah’s people are there to remind the nurses. Something I could not believe, there was an incubator in the room with a number of the kids. It has a note on it saying “Nurses May you please take care of me I am alone my mom is not well, feed me, bath me, give me my medication, I am on X-pen and Gentamyacin, thank you. Baby Fungai Machayo.” The little baby is in there with no clothing, she must have been premature as she is so small.

The problem of abandoned babies is only going to be a growing one. There are so many people infected with HIV who can not care for their babies, or they are dying during childbirth and people are really taxed looking after their own children. Part of this problem is also cultures, there are many situations where the mother will go into the hospital, give birth and leave without being registered and leaving the baby behind. Distraught mothers are leaving children in public places, and garbage piles so that they don’t have to take care of them. Perhaps they were conceived then the father decides he doesn’t want to support it or their family forces them to get rid of it for traditional reasons. It is a rather desperate situation here. Isaiah’s home is one way to help deal with the situation. They got the idea from an abandoned babies home in Kenya which has been operating successfully for ten years and Isaiah’s home keeps in touch with them as well. When the government finally gives them permits to take the children to the home there will be some improvement over this situation. They will have 20 healthy happy babies at the house being taken care of by eight or more people and hopefully they will continue to assist in the hospitals for those children who are actually sick and recovering. What an eye opening experience. And this organization gratefully accepts volunteers of all kinds to assist with care and visit the children in the hospital. Contact me if you want contact information for Isaiah’s Umuzi Wothando -Isaiah’s Home of Love.

---

---