A Bag of Rice Gift (Digital download)
The bag of rice is used to feed either the children living in the Interim Care Centre or the 100 children who attend the mobile projects every day.
We will email you a digital version of the gift certificate and provide the gift to a child living, or formerly living, on the streets in Sierra Leone.
The bag of rice is used to feed either the children living in the Interim Care Centre or the 100 children who attend the mobile projects every day.
We will email you a digital version of the gift certificate and provide the gift to a child living, or formerly living, on the streets in Sierra Leone.
The bag of rice is used to feed either the children living in the Interim Care Centre or the 100 children who attend the mobile projects every day.
We will email you a digital version of the gift certificate and provide the gift to a child living, or formerly living, on the streets in Sierra Leone.
How your gift has helped Laughter Africa children in the past year:
One bag of rice will feed the children at the Interim Care Centre for over one week.
One of the most popular times for the children and young people at the Interim Care Centre is dinner time! This is especially true for Francis who loves his food!
Francis, 12, who stayed at the Interim Care Centre in April/May 2024, went to the streets 2 and a half years ago. He said, “My mum died so I was brought from the village to live in Freetown with my dad. My dad is addicted to Kush. He doesn't care about me. I would never see him. My dad would go to ghettos for 2 or 3 days, just to smoke Kush. He wouldn’t leave food for me. I would have to dreg for food. My dad loves kush more than me. I am scared that my dad is dead from kush- I have not seen him for a while.”
He continued, “My sister is dead and my brother is living on the streets too. The streets were not fine. There was no better thing to eat. Sometimes I didn’t get food until evening or nighttime. My friend who lived on the streets Thomas, 15, died a few months before Laughter arrived. He was dregging for different items like plastic, copper or brass in the dump and he got pricked by a used syringe. Soon after his foot swelled and a month later he was dead. I am tired of the streets.”
Sadly we found out that Francis's dad tragically died at the beginning of May 2024. We had to break the news to Francis. Sadly we think that we will be seeing more children turn to the streets because of the effects of Kush addiction on their families. Kush is one of the biggest problem facing Sierra Leone at the moment. Dealers are now mixing Kush with human bones. The side effects of kush are absolutely horrific. Most kush users have massive chunks of their legs missing- their legs look like they have been hacked at with machetes. There is no way to describe it apart from its like half their legs have been eaten by a piranha. Sorry for the graphic imagery but there is no nice way to describe it. It is truly a grotesque sight and the users of Kush are in horrendous pain as their legs have been completely decimated. This 10 minute film clip appeared on channel 4 news earlier this year and gives a small insight into the world of Kush:
https://youtu.be/fKc3SDBoFtA?si=yuvYkWyck8wu9mT7
However, Francis’s story does have a happy ending. We reunified him with his family in May 20224 and in September we paid for Francis to attend a new school. Francis was so excited about his fresh start – he couldn’t stop smiling!