RACHANA APPEAL - World Leprosy Day 2007

Little Rachana stood helplessly on the train platform, tears streaming down her face. Busy people swarmed all around her. She was utterly lost. I cannot fathom the circumstances that would have led this little girl to be left alone in a busy train station. At a glance, you might think she had been separated temporarily from her parents. The reality of Rachana’s situation is much more heartbreaking. Her family had left her there. Rachana contracted leprosy when she was just 3, a toddler who couldn’t understand why her family suddenly pulled away from her. She couldn’t understand why nobody hugged her or played with her anymore. As the disease progressed, the symptoms became more pronounced. Her clawed hands made people in her remote Nepalese village stare and whisper. When her parents died, her older brother took over the family. As the new head of the household, he was under incredible pressure. Before their father died, he made an arrangement for Rachana’s sister to be married. Her brother loved his sisters deeply, but was terrified of Rachana’s leprosy and the shame it would bring the rest of the family if the groom decided not to go through with the wedding. With intense fear and panic clouding his judgment, he decided the only way to save his family was to kill Rachana. Rachana’s sister was horrified. There was no way she could let this happen. She grabbed her little sister, took her own dowry money, and they ran away. They had nowhere to go, no one to turn to. After months of wandering through strange cities, alone and afraid, the sisters found themselves on a train to Lucknow in India. Both girls were exhausted. In the crowded train compartment, Rachana’s sister found her a small spot to curl up in and told her to go to sleep. When Rachana woke up, her sister was gone. I know her sister did all she could. She desperately loved Rachana and had summoned all her courage to try to keep her safe. But like her brother, fear overtook her. Fortunately, a local person took Rachana to a Leprosy Mission hospital where she received treatment. She was enrolled in the local school and cared for but she will never have her childhood back. My heart aches for this little girl. If Rachana had received treatment in time, she would have been spared years of pain. The tears, the trauma of being abandoned by her own family and the fear of having a strange disease could have all been avoided. Rachana is now a mother with two children of her own. Yet there are so many other young boys and girls suffering unnecessarily just like Rachana did. Please call 0900 900 44 to leave a $25 donation or click here to donate now link below

 

COMMUNITY BASED REHABILITATION WORKS - World Leprosy Day 2006

There was a time Shyam Kishore thought his life couldn’t get worse. Recently diagnosed with leprosy, his wife left him in shame. Entirely deserted, Shyam’s only option was to seek treatment at The Leprosy Mission’s Hospital in Muzaffarpur, India. It was here that he met a girl named Bena, also receiving a cure for leprosy. They would marry soon after.

What at first appeared to be catastrophe was merely the beginning of a new phase of life for Shyam.

After their treatment was complete, Shyam and Bena received an interest-free loan from The Leprosy Mission’s Community-Based Rehabilitation programme operating in Muzaffarpur. Through this support, they opened a tea & biscuit vending stall right outside the Muzaffarpur Hospital, and have had three children who were featured on a Leprosy Mission InTouch magazine in March 2005 (see right.)

However, their story does not end there. An intellectually-disabled woman living in the area had
recently given birth to a son, only to throw him out into a rubbish bin. No stranger to rejection,
Shyam saved and adopted the abandoned child. Shyam was so grateful for the help he had
received from The Leprosy Mission that he named his newly-adopted son Vikas – Hindi for
‘development’! Thanks to their thriving tea business, Shyam and Bena are able to afford to raise
Vikas, who would have otherwise been forgotten and left to die.

The Muzaffarpur Community-Based Rehabilitation programme has supported countless people like Shyam, who have been unfortunate enough to contract leprosy and suffer stigma at the hands of their family, friends and wider community. Despite the ongoing success of this programme, there is still tremendous need in this area. Muzaffarpur is located within India's Bihar state, a region notorious for its poverty, crime, and corruption.

Home to almost 100 million people, most of whom try to survive on less than NZ$1.80 per day,
Bihar is chronically impoverished. Bihar also has a massive 63 per 1000 infant mortality rate,
compared with New Zealand’s 5 per 1000. As well as leprosy, residents must be wary of
diseases such as TB, malaria, and dysentery which flourish in the region.

People affected by leprosy need your support to provide a future of hope.

Please, make a donation to the World Leprosy Day Appeal by clicking here and help the people
of Muzaffarpur change their lives and community for good.

CHICKEN RUN!

People affected by leprosy in Papua New Guinea are the poorest of the poor - living on less than NZ$0.46 per day! Heavily stigmatised, they have very limited means to generate income. The wider community doesn’t make it easy for people affected by leprosy to engage in business and farming barely produces enough crops to feed their own families, let alone generate any surplus income.

However, there is hope! After a joint study in consultation with the local people, a fantastic micro enterprise initiative has been developed that will enable these people to break the cycle of poverty for good - The Chicken Run Project!

People affected by leprosy in the communities of Popendetta, Bol and Lemakot have formed Self-Help Groups and are awaiting their 150 chickens (plus the odd rooster) per month for the next 6 months. Technical training and group meetings will encourage good business practice. By providing the means to run a poultry farm there is hope for sustainable livelihoods, better health care, nutritious food and education for young children. Most of the new income will come from selling the chickens at the local market - with the eggs providing much needed protein to a diet high in carbohydrates. But to make this happen they desperately need financial capital to get it all started!

With your help we can bring hope for 2006 by making the Chicken Run Project a reality. The project needs 1800 chickens in the next 6 months. Can you help? Please add some extra ‘chickens’ to your Christmas shopping list. $10 will provide 4, better still $30 a whole dozen! Your investment into the lives of people affected by leprosy in Papua New Guinea will ensure a continued return.

Click here to support the Papua New Guinea Chicken Run project!

PAKISTAN EARTHQUAKE

On October 8 2005, a massive earthquake rocked the Pakistan-administered regions of Jammu and Kashmir, leaving over 70,000 people dead, with another 70,000 critically injured and in need of medical care, and over 3 Million people without shelter.

Leprosy Mission workers Dr. Ajit Barkataki and Mathan Raj David, who usually work within the hospital at Faizabad, India, have volunteered to assist in the recovery efforts following this earthquake. Kashmir faces a humanitarian crisis as winter begins to set in, with many people still homeless. Aid to the affected areas is hard to come by as the region is remote and mountainous as well as a history of terrorist insurgency that makes travel hazardous.

The Leprosy Mission is now accepting donations to help support the victims of this disaster. Click the 'Donate Now' link to the left to support Ajit and Mathan Raj in their work.

SUDAN APPEAL

I need to alert you to the ongoing refugee crisis that is currently happening in Sudan. The scene of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis since Rwanda and Bosnia, this country is increasingly burdened by refugees that have fled both the Darfur conflict in the west, as well as the decades-old civil war in the South. In both areas, human rights violations of the worst kind occur daily. Within Darfur alone, the United Nations report that around 300,000 innocent children, women, and men have been killed since the conflict began in 2004. In a cruel environment where rape is used systematically as a weapon of war, 2 million displaced and homeless people are left to run for their lives to refugee camps either in neighbouring Chad or central Sudan. Unbelievably, some refugees are not admitted to these camps! Refugees affected by leprosy are routinely refused entry to their only hope of safety, food, basic shelter and clean water. Instead, they are banished to primitive and remote leprosy colonies where survival is an everyday struggle.

WE NEED TO ACT NOW BEFORE IT GETS WORSE.

Currently The Leprosy Mission NZ has only 1 full time staff member on our project work in a country 15 times larger than New Zealand!

In the Mayo Leprosy settlement we are working to construct solid brick homes to replace temporary shelters of old sacking; ensuring a new and safe water supply; the installation of new latrines; as well as a much needed community health education programme. Scores of people will benefit from learning to make bricks - also providing a new trade for future employment. Stigma and rejection that people affected by leprosy face, even during a national calamity, is astounding. In a region where fear of leprosy is a centuries-old tradition, very few people even consider shaking hands or even eating with someone affected by leprosy. We want to give hope to these Sudanese who have known little else beyond rejection, fear and loathing.

Join us in showing them there are people who care. Please give as much as you can spare. I thank you on their behalf for any help you can offer.