In 2017, our project was a wonderful one. We were doing a complete revamp of a nasty and tired old structure that houses 24 unwanted children. It is on the edges of one of the 2 major cities in eSwatini (Swaziland.) these children come from a variety of backgrounds. Some are abandoned at birth and call this place home, knowing no other. Others have been removed from dangerous home settings. And I can attest that in order for Swaziland to remove children, with virtually NO social safety net, these conditions would need to be extreme. Another was a victim of child trafficking.
The old home is solid, but it was smelly, leaking, moldy and insufficient for the ever growing number of children being left there. We did the following:
-all new flooring
-installed 2 showers where there were none, replacing a non functional bathtub
-all new toilets and sinks
-all new appliances
-all new beds, bedding, pillows, curtains
-painted the entire place
-took 2 dumpsters of trash away from an empty building onsite
-installed new cabinetry in the kitchen and tiled around it
-created a bike path from concrete in the yard
-painted a gorgeous mural on the outside of the building
Following all that hard work, we viewed other projects within the country. We hiked, biked, and went into remote corners of the country to see how people really live there. We shared meals with the Swazi’s and were their guests.
