The forgotten children — street children in Soroti

A life in the shadows, at the edge of society

They scrape a living on the streets and in the alleys of the towns; their life is a daily struggle to survive. They live on alms, on scraps from the rubbish, and on small, occasional thefts.

Some of the boys and girls are only six years old and must fend for themselves, entirely alone. Their lives are marked by hunger, violence, fear and pain.

To some of us these children are invisible, because we do not want to see them. They do not fit our idea of a perfect world, and they show us that we have failed as a society.

What we did

With our project in the town of Soroti we set a sign of compassion. Every child received new clothing, hygiene articles and a personal gift. And every child was allowed to eat as much as it could — without begging or stealing.

The children were extremely friendly and grateful — grateful above all that someone saw them as human beings. A young woman of fourteen came to us with her six-month-old baby and thanked us especially for the baby clothes.

We help where others look away — for a child there is nothing worse than being cast out and unseen.

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