Welcome Home stories - Linda and Oscar

Spending time at Welcome Home AIDS baby orphanage was good today, the little ones are adorable. One girl actually arrived at the home about four weeks ago. She was wearing a big long sleeved top and skirt so when I picked her up I was shocked to feel how thin she actually was. It just felt like bones. Her skin was wrinkled and saggy on her arms and legs because there was just nothing to fill it. The other toddlers were running around playing in the playground but she sat on a bench, and when she did get up to move around it was very slow movement. I sat with her on my knee and she looked so weak and sad. As I tickled her I got a small smile.

However in my last few visits to the home I have noticed a significant change in her body, she is looking healthier and has put on a small bit of weight. The best thing is that when I sit with her on my knee now, she is smiling so much more and it's stories like this that show real lives being transformed. The home feeds the children properly and makes sure they are medically cared for. As many of them are HIV positive, it's important that they are looked after properly and the children here are so happy now.

I also spent time in the really young baby room, mainly with Oscar. Like some of the children from Home of Hope that I work with, Oscar has hydrocephalus, which makes his head very large due a build up of fluid on the brain. However he is in good care there - he is such a lovely little boy who loves just being held and cuddled so that's pretty much what we did for a long time.