We would like to dedicate the following article to a very special boy and his grandparents, because he has suffered a particularly sad fate:
Godbless Fidelis is a six-year-old boy born with physical and mental disabilities. He has a weak spine and diseased joints and therefore cannot stand or walk on his own. The movements of his upper body are also uncontrolled and he is dependent on a wheelchair every day. Godbless cannot articulate himself well and it is very difficult for him to speak. His father denied both him and his mother during pregnancy. When his mother realized that she had given birth to a sick child, she left him alone after a few weeks and disappeared. Since that day Godbless has lived with his grandparents; his biological parents have never returned to him.
The grandparents now give Godbless the love and care his parents denied him. Despite their old age and the great-grandmother, who needs a lot of care, they take care of their little protégé touchingly and intensively every day. They take him to the hospital regularly, take him to the Hope Home to play and work tirelessly on his physical and mental abilities. Contrary to the doctors’ announcement that Godbless would never learn to speak and write, thanks to his grandmother’s determination he can now make himself understood in elementary terms and also write a few words. The children in the Hope Home have fully accepted Godbless and take care of him touchingly when he visits. Out of gratitude, his grandparents regularly supply the Hope Home with food, such as vegetables and fruit, rice or even meat, despite their limited financial resources.
In Tanzania, disabilities are despised by large sections of the population and are a social taboo. Sick people are hid at home out of shame by their relatives and they can often not participate in public life. Despite all her efforts, Godbless’ grandmother has not managed for a long time to find him a primary school that is willing to take him in. After a long search, she has now found a private school where he can be taught. We would like to help Godbless and his family with the financing of school fees!
Update July 2018:
Thanks to a generous sponsorship we could finally register Godbless at a private all-day school, the “Morning Light Daycare and Nursery School”. In this way, despite his illness, he can experience a regular everyday life and integrate into society. This not only brings him great joy and the social contacts urgently needed for his development, as he is a very cheerful child, but also relieves his grandparents very much. Godbless was well received by the other schoolchildren – they respect that he attends classes in a wheelchair and integrate him in their break activities. Photos and a video are available on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/weltherzev/.
