We just finished our first regional conference last week, and it was a huge success! For many the highlight of the South Africa/Swaziland conference was Thulile sharing her story of helping children.
In November 2009, five brothers and sisters under the age of 12 huddled themselves in their stick and mud hut on a deserted hillside in rural Swaziland and watched their sick mother die. Their father had died in the same hut a year earlier, leaving the children to look after their sick mother for months before she passed away. They had not been attending school, had no school uniforms or books, and now they were alone without even a single day’s food.
After two weeks fending for their lives, a neighbor found the children eating mud on the bank of a river to keep their stomachs full. He went to speak with Asondle Sive Bomake (ASB), a hands at work partner CBO in the area. After the neighbor spoke with ASB, they assigned Thulile to visit the children. When Thulile first went to see the children they ran away. Thulile said, "They didn't want to be around other people at all."
