Our Beautiful Sponsored Children.

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The End of a Dream.

Beatrice was filled with joy and a degree of trepidation when she at last set food in India. This was something that she had wanted to do for a very long time, but family responsibilities and a career had not made it possible, until now.

She knew that the poverty would be difficult to cope with but she also knew that pretending it didn’t exist was not an option either.

The village was basic. No running water in any of the small dark dirt, homes and certainly no electricity. Their animals, mostly goats slept in a corner of the one room houses with them at night on a bed of straw. But oh the welcome! These poor people who seemed almost forgotten by the rest of the world wanted to share their meager food with her at every opportunity. Beatrice decided she had to help them in some way.

A few of the children in the village looked fitter, more well fed and certainly more lively than the majority. These she found out, were sponsored children and attended an English Medium school at a nearby village, where as well as a far better education - in English, they were also provided with a nourishing lunch. She had already visited the local school and was amazed that it could even be called a school. Apart from having no resources what-so-ever, the children were made to sit on the dirt floor not moving, reciting parrot fashion everything that was said by the teacher. If they dared to move or ask a question, they received a hefty smack. Sometimes the teacher didn’t even turn up and they were left just sitting. She had left there wanting to weep for those poor children with little or no chance of improving their lives.

That was when she decided to sponsor a child. Beatrice wanted to do more but living on a pension back home with bills to pay was not so easy and her husband had died a few years ago leaving only a small insurance policy. She had to be “careful” as she put it.

As soon as she saw him she knew he was the one she wanted to sponsor. Dirt, skinny, a constant runny nose but eyes as bight as new pennies. Dependra’s mother was a widow, her husband had been working in the Middle East when there was an accident and he had died. The company said it was his own fault so there was no compensation. She was left to pay off the loan for his air fare at an exorbitant interest rate. Dependra attended the local village school, but often stayed home to help his mother sort through the village refuse for recyclable plastic.

Some years later….

Dependra was in year 5, a bright student who had caught up with the other children at the English Medium school in no time. He couldn’t believe how his life had changed. He had managed to get a job after school serving chai at a small café and earned enough money to make his mother’s life easier. He would dream at night of attending the Computer science college and then getting a good job to enable him to rent a small apartment in a modern city for him and his mother. His teachers told him that he had the capability. Beatrice, his sponsor was like a God to him and his mother, he couldn’t believe how lucky he was.

It was just after lunch when his teacher told him that the principal wanted to see him in his office. He went in smiling as he had never had anything but praise from the head of school. It was immediately obvious that Principal Nandi was not about to praise him.

After school Dependra walked home in a state of shock wondering how he was gping to tell his mother. How could this happen? Why would his sponsor suddenly stop paying the school fees? He was doing so well and had been sending copies of all his reports regularly. The school had tried to contact Beatrice but had received no reply from their emails. Why? Why?

Dependra now works in the chai shop for 10 hours a day, 7 days a week. His mother is back sorting through the town refuse and does washing and cleaning for a local Brahman family - they pay her poorly. Dependra tries to forget about his dream, it hurts too much. He has resigned himself to selling chai for the rest of his life.

Beatrice’s family have at last come to terms with her sudden demise. Such a wonderful, giving, fun loving lady. It seemed so unfair that she should be taken so quickly. A massive stroke the doctors said. Who was to know? But at least she had fulfilled her dream of visiting India a few years ago and it made her so happy. The family are grateful for that and for the fact that she got all her things in order before she departed this earth. No sibling arguments over the will, everything divided up fair and square among the three children.

They had no idea that there was one big thing that she didn’t think to include in her will, the provision for a small boy to achieve his dream.



If you sponsor a child, please, please, make a provision in your will for the fees to be paid until the child completes his or her education. Don’t let this happen to your special sponsored child.
Please send this on to any people you know who sponsore children.

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Photos

Dependra
With a dream for the future.