WE don’t often use this column to make an appeal to our readers, but with Christmas only days away, we want to bring the plight of a group of small children to your notice.
By right, these children and those selfless people who help to look after them, should be placed at the top of any charity list in this country.
These kids have either lost one or both parents to AIDS.
In Papua New Guinea, many of us still suffer from an attitude that notes problems but sees them as samting bilong gavman. The trouble is that not everything can be the Government’s responsibility; sooner or later the people who make up the community have to throw some effort into caring for others.
One week ago, the Port Moresby Rotoract Club held an early Christmas lunch for some 300 children who are in this situation.
The age range was three to 13.
Let’s stop and think about that for a moment and see it in the context of our own children and families.
This is no small issue.
The Rotoract Club president gave our reporter one statistic that should give us all pause to think.
Rhoda Moses, noting that this was the second year for the party to be held, said simply: “Last year, there were about 35 children. This year we have 300.”
Many of these children are orphans; others are with parents who are AIDS victims.
Can you imagine the life of a child living with one parent, or perhaps both, affected with HIV/AIDS?
Even assuming that the parents are able to access anti-retroviral drugs, they may only be able to live their lives at a reduced level.
Perhaps the father no longer has a job.
Perhaps there is only a mother, battling with the task of bringing up a number of children and knowing that her own life-span is limited.
We know of one such case.
The woman was an exceptional person; a village woman who had received a good education. She made use of her fluent English to tell students of her situation and how she continued to bring up her small family.
She had lost two of her children to AIDS, which she had acquired innocently through her husband, who had died some years earlier.
We’ll call the lady Jenny.
A born battler, Jenny first fought against stigma in her own village.
Initially it was bitter and even life threatening.
But as the years passed, she cemented her rightful place in that village for herself and her children. Medical help slowly became more available. Tests showed that some of her children had escaped the curse of AIDS.
With energy and commitment Jenny faced life and dealt with it on her own terms.
Last year, her friends noticed she was coughing more often. Little by little her energy flagged and despite the best available treatment, she began to fade.
Jenny is dead now.
But she left a legacy for all who find themselves in a similar position.
Knowing that death was near, she made arrangements for her young family. Her children are not on the street.
But too many of the 300 children who had their Christmas party last week are orphans in every sense of the word.
They have been neglected.
Many have been living on the streets of this capital, forming themselves into small gangs whose members support each other in a manner most adults would do well to copy.
We have to stop depending on the extraordinary care and concern of a tiny group of people like the Port Moresby Rotoract club.
The 300 children affected by AIDS cannot be the exclusive problem of a handful of exceptional people.
Our leaders constantly remind us that we should, as a nation, take ownership of AIDS.
The Rotoract Club has heard and understood that message.
How many others out there, when they sit down to their Christmas Day feasts, will spare a thought for these orphans and AIDS-disadvantaged children?
And how many readers will make the effort to contact the NCD AIDS Committee or the Rotoract Club and see if they can host one or more of these children on Christmas Day?
Please.