Joel

From Peter, our Project Coordinator:

"Joel was identified in the normal visits that our project coordinator was carrying out with the Yote Yawezekana members. As they were walking down the dirt paths to the next home they met Joel, carrying a 20 litre container on his head (which in this village and Africa as a whole is not common for a boy child.) I was encouraged when one of the mamas in the group helped Joel to carry the container while I asked him a few questions as we walked. The information he gave attracted us to visit his house and see how he lived. This is when we discovered that he lived alone and that his mother and father had died of HIV. One of his brothers had dropped out of school and gone to work far as a herds-boy. Learning all the experiences of Joel I asked the women to think about him. I visited his school and talked to the teachers and they told me he was one of the most well disciplined boys and usually he was in the top 10 in his classes. He needed encouragement and support and he would do well in school. All this touched me and I had a follow up meeting with the executive committee of Yote Yawezekana Women's Group and they accepted Joel in the outreach efforts of their group. Joel will be included in the school feeding program (which Projects of Hope has helped make possible) where he will have meals at school. At the same time we agreed to work together and get him a school uniform and other school supplies. As you can see from his photo he is full of smiles and a soft spoken boy."

Joel attends Primary School

You can help provide for Joel, an eighth grade student living alone, after his mother and father passed away of AIDS.