SISTERS ON A MISSION IN THE MOTHER LAND

Ethlyns Hope INC Medical Mission will travel to Kenya September 2018 to provide medical care and clothes donation in the village of Lela. There are many children in the community who are either partial or total orphans. Most of these children became orphans when their parents died from HIV/AIDS. Many of these children are living without the basic necessities such as medicine for childhood disease, clothes and food. Ethlyn's Hope Medical Mission provide medicine, food and clothes to the needy children. Sometimes the clothes they show up in is so worn that when they are given the new clothes they take of the rags they were wearing and put on the new ones immediately. Please open your heart and help us bring a smile on the face of these children. 100% of your donation goes to facilitating me to get to Kenya to serve as a health and wellness provider for the children in need of care and to provide supplies and basic necessities the need.

In Kenya, the situation of Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVCs) is an issue of concern. Currently it is estimated that there are over 3 million Orphans in the country, 47 percent orphaned as a result of HIV and AIDS and many more remain vulnerable due to several other factors. The statistics surrounding the rising population and the immense suffering of these children can be overwhelming. Over 25% of the population live on less than $1 per day and 12-15% of households in Kenya are headed by an orphan sibling. 700 children are orphaned every day (that is a child every 2 minutes) and 1/3 of these are orphaned due to HIV / AIDS. This means that the number of orphans is set to rise. Traumatized by the death of parents, at times the orphans become antisocial. It has not helped matters that the society seems to have become impervious to their plight. The fact that these children do not have parents predisposes them to exploitation. Orphans are especially a soft target for child traffickers.

HIV and AIDS compounded with high poverty levels have aggravated the situation of Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVCs) in Kenya. Children affected by HIV/AIDS are vulnerable long before their parents die. Girls, in particular, assume caring responsibilities for their ailing parents besides parenting for their siblings. In some regions of the country, over 25% of orphans are acutely malnourished in a country whose economy is largely driven by agriculture. With an economically weakened and overstretched traditional African extended family system that can no longer work effectively to address the high OVC burden, most children find themselves without proper social support with the incapacitation and death of their parents. The future of these children remains very unpredictable. This will deny the OVCs a chance to access their basic needs such as proper health care, education shelter and nutrition. Orphans suffer stigma, stress and trauma in addition to the loss of parental love, care and protection and more often they are disinherited by their next of kin.

“One is not born into the world to do everything but to do something.” – Henry David Thoreau.

Today, we're asking you to make that 'something' a $50 gift (or what ever you can afford )to helping us reach our goals, facilitate the needs of this medical mission in the village of Lela, Kenya meeting the needs to the orphans there.