Homeless but sheltering multitudes

When she first came to Malawi in 1974 fresh from studying paediatrics in her native Italy, little did Sister Rita Milesi know she would stay in Malawi this long. She was just one of the volunteer nurses at Sister Martha Hospital in Mangochi under Celim – an Italian international Christian voluntary work organisation. Our correspondent, FATSANI GUNYA writes her fascinating story.

Today, the 60-year- old director of Alleluya Orphan Care Centre in Namwera, Mangochi, Rita Milesi, has the lives of over 2000 orphans credited to her name. The first orphan she nursed and natured from her salary is now a 37-year-old man, a father and husband now based in the district.

And yet she refuses to exalt herself; neither does she call herself rich. This is probably the act that has earned her the title ‘the face of love’ from both admirers and once-upon-a time critics over the years.

“Giving does not always emanate from bountifulness; it should come from the heart. Love is the key. Life revolves around it and I decided to part mine to many needy children in Malawi. I just wanted to give them hope,” explains Sister Rita.

She claims she was shocked with what she witnessed in the lives of some Malawian children the time she arrived.

“I don’t think poverty can be an excuse not to try and bring about the difference in somebody’s life. I feel everyone has got something to offer,” she says.

Numerous reports can attest to her sentiments.

One million orphans

The National Plan of Action on orphans and other vulnerable children (OVC) created by UNICEF and the Government of Malawi in 2009 estimates that there are more than one million orphans and other vulnerable children in Malawi and half of these are due to the HIV and Aids pandemic.

The document says in general, there are more paternal orphans compared to maternal orphans.

It has also been observed that there are more orphans in urban areas than there are in rural areas. This is as a result of the high HIV and Aids prevalence within urban areas as compared to rural areas.

Unfortunately, a 2005 Unaids/WHO report indicate that the prospects for improvement are dim as many more children will be orphaned by Aids in the coming years.

The report specifically confined the projection to the sub-Saharan Africa region where it was estimated that 25.8 million people were living with the pandemic – 60 percent of the worldwide total, adding that the situation needs a multi-sectoral approach, lest the pandemic prevails.

“Even if new HIV infections begin to level off, so many people are already living with HIV that the proportion of children likely to be orphaned will remain high until at least 2030 in high-prevalence countries,” reads the report in part.

Such revelations and what Rita was seeing on the ground then only strengthened her zeal to improve child welfare in Malawi– a place she now calls home.

Lack of funding

Her passion for valuing human life and child welfare saw her heading the Namwera Aids co-coordinating committee (NACC)—a grouping composed of several stakeholder associations that deal in orphan care with a bias to those infected and affected with HIV and Aids. They established a centre but it was run by the Catholic Diocese of Mangochi.

Her leadership saw the centre develop into one of the most envied in the country. It had a vocational training school and a state-of- the- art early childhood development centre where ‘her children’ attended school courtesy of her private income.

However, the centre closed in 2002 due to lack of adequate funding. This rendered her ‘ministry’ helpless. She had nothing to tend her ‘flock’ with.

As a last born in a family of 16, back home in Italy, Rita was the heir of her family’s estate. Left with no choice, she sold it and invested the money in orphan care in Malawi.

“It was better losing my family’s legacy than watch my dream of giving hope to generations falter. Strangely, I felt relieved when I came back to Malawi.

“But I needed some divine intervention. I have always relied on it and I have never departed from the path of the Lord,” She says proudly.

In 2005, she was allocated some piece of land where the recent structure of Alleluya Orphan Care Centre stands.

According to Mangochi assistant social welfare officer, Isaac Machinjiri, the district had 30 528 orphans as of September, 2012.

The welfare office implements the social cash transfer scheme, an initiative aimed at cushioning the effects of poverty among the elderly and other vulnerable children (under 18) who accounts for 13 218 of the target group. However, the intervention is yet to scale up to other areas as it is only operating in four of Mangochi’s nine traditional authority areas.

Good Samaritans

Machinjiri says most of the children were rendered orphans through HIV and Aids pandemic.

“I think this paints a clear picture of the extent of damage the pandemic has done to the district. Hopefully, it will help send the much needed awareness to those who would have been victims and potential ‘Samaritans’,” he said.

Such a disturbing picture probably keeps Rita’s frail body going.

With the help of a fellow retired nurse Ireen Salima, the centre gets busy around the clock just to ensure that a child – whose immediate family members came begging for a place at the centre; or that who was abandoned by a reckless mother, or even rescued from a pit latrine –is given a second chance in life. May be some hope for their future, too.

Currently, Alleluya has 45 orphans, ranging from newborns to three-year olds. They are from Zomba, Machinga and surrounding communities in Mangochi. The centre has a policy of integrating children back into their respective communities whenever they clock three.

But Sister Rita says she would have loved to stay with them a little longer.

“Most times, we hear reports that the children are ill-treated when we place them in the care of their immediate family members. There was a time when I shed a tear from what I saw; a set of twins we had just integrated back in the community were sharing a room with goats. My heart nearly bled.” She recounts.

Sister Rita says such instances make her feel like keeping them a little longer but financial constraints hinder her. The centre annually spends about K2 million (about $5 000) towards child welfare.

She claims the centre has adequate space and facilities to accommodate more orphans through their infancy years.

“The problem is we don’t have any consistent donor. We run the institution through well-wishers most of whom are students from the West who are moved by the pictures they see of their Malawian counterparts. They save part of their pocket money which makes the huge difference when sent towards Alleluya,” she says.

Love

Despite all these setbacks and fears, Alleluya still dishes out some nutrition packs periodically to help sustain the health of those it once helped raise.

In conjunction with the district social welfare office, it also conducts some periodic inspections in the homes of those repatriated.

But with a thin budget line of about K5 million (about $12 500), the office is allocated annually (an improvement from about K1.5 million), the office admits it can no longer cope with the demands and expectations.

For instance, out of the 27 child protection officers the office deployed in the communities, only 12 are on government payroll. The rest are volunteers.

Machinjiri added that it’s risky for such an office to be placing all its expectations on the ill-equipped staff and volunteers.

“Most times, they [volunteers] don’t feel duty-bound to deliver as expected simply because they lack some incentives. But these are the people on the ground; people who collect all the data before it is consolidated to reflect a clear picture at a district level,” He emphasised.

Apart from Alleluya Orphan Care Centre, Mangochi only has a few recognised orphan care centres namely: Open Arms and Grace Children’s home, among others. The efforts to mitigate the impact of HIV and Aids seem like a mockery in the eyes of soaring orphanage.

A 2001 Unicef report on global orphanage says:

“In fact, so many people are becoming infected with HIV before the age of 24 and dying from Aids before the age of 35, therefore leaving behind a generation of children to be raised by grandparents or siblings.”

Despite Sister Rita taking her begging bowl to various offices and individuals across the country over the years, Alleluya is yet to get any meaningful support.

“We are no longer looking for money from anyone despite the challenges. We are only asking for people to show some kind of love towards fellow human beings and everything else shall follow. Otherwise, it pains sending needy children away every time they knock on our door,” she concludes.