At HOCT, no one is really rich. We do not have rich sponsors that dwell in castles and drive expensive cars. We have people who struggle to live, who live in harmony and pure morality, we have people who know what it means – not to have. We have people who understand that giving is receiving.

It is not only due to the religion that I follow, that I believe in Karma. Karma is a very brutal reality, that translates into a very simple equation: you reap what you sow. If you are generous, it will be repaid to you a thousand times more. How do I know this? I know this because I see this each and every day, in my work and through talking to people.

My friend Sunny Staša is by no means rich. What is more, life has thrown all sorts of things at her: a fragile health (which is a large understatement), natural disasters destroying her house, loss of her father, and many other struggles. But Stasa has kept a pure heart and, sometimes, out of the little she has, she sends me a small amount to buy food for a few children that do not have anything.

Many people send one-time donations; but Stasa’s gesture has brought me to tears, because she is really, really struggling. I should be the one helping her, and instead, she is the one helping HOCT.

And this is how grace manifests itself in our wounded world, this is how this world heals and becomes better.
This is how you become reach: when you are like Stasa.

PS: Stasa does not know I was going to write this post, so I hope she will not yell at me too much!

…but first, I nearly died out of fear!

This beautiful boy is called Kidumbulu Musa and he has been through so much, incredible… he almost died several times. We have managed to pull him back from the abyss now, once more.
Kidumbulu is 12 years old, but as you can see, he looks like a 8-year-old. He has suffered from malnutrition in early childhood, and he also suffers from sickle-cell disease (SCD) which is not curable. He has been treated by our beloved Dr. Marriam for a while, and when the situation deteriorated massively (yellow eyes, loss of consciousness) we rushed him to a more specialized clinic.

I was fearing liver failure and he has not been very far from that. I do not understand the whole plethora of diagnostics that have been written down for him (I am better at understanding invoices for payment lol) but I do know this, he has been very ill – and now, thanks to our care, he is doing so much better. I am very relieved and happy.

Many people helped me pay his hospital bills and I am greatly in your debt. Janet, Ruth, Claudia, Denise, Claire, his sponsor Charmaine, Maria & Mom Helen, Noemi, Sylvana, forgive me if I forgot anyone.

Funds from the hospital bills were left and we got him a little bit of food and charcoal, as well as 10 hen which will provide eggs for him and his family, which is very good. I got inspiration from Sylvana, who raises turkeys.

The child is still weak, getting tired easily, but his life is no longer in danger, and so I hope that he will gain more strength and be alright in the end.

And so, I am happy that we did not live for nothing… together, we saved a little life.

We have many disabled children in the village. The usual sufferings are hydrocephalus, “weak bones” (insufficient development of the skeleton), sickle-cell disease (SCD) which is a debilitating illness, malnutrition (with its own plethora of disasters), arms and legs malformations, missing limbs, deformed spine.. and so many other indescribable horrors.

I kept thinking and researching why do these occur. For some of them, the reason is obvious: lack of nutrition and clean water, women giving birth in all sorts of conditions, often without any assistance. In some other situations, the malformations are due to women being abused whilst pregnant, not receiving enough sustenance during the pregnancy, or drinking / bathing / doing laundry in very polluted bodies of water. And then, unknown diseases and mutations. It is very difficult to go around such causes and conditions (but I am trying; at least, women can come to our hospital and give birth!) and so sometimes I am wondering…

…we are all wondering about this at a certain moment in life.

Why should children suffer like this?

At HOCT, we all do our best to stop the suffering of children. To change those horror photos that we see sometimes. We usually manage.

Christian, in the below photo, is a child who is always so excited!! He loves to come to the office and to be around people, around other children, to receive attention, to play a bit. He has a severe mental and coordination disability.

And so, what I believe is that those children are born and get to live among us, so that we may learn the true meaning of devotion, the true meaning of love, of boundless, unconditional love.

They feel our love.

It’s one of those very classical Mondays when we wake up a little bit groggy and sleepy. I have important things to do at 05:30, so I thrown myself out of bed, because my alarm has the merciless name: “I don’t care if it hurts.” Each day, many things hurt, and I don’t care if they do. I choose to live my life in a certain way, and if stuff hurts, if there are wounds, well… band-aid, and onward we go.

Well today was a day that required many band-aids. The strategy that I deploy whenever something hurts is to wait because I know for sure – bad things do not last. Good things do come, we only have to be a little patient. And so, at about noon, my colleague Mugoya Swaliki came to me with the news that the school roof is ready! When the pictures eventually loaded and I could see the beautiful blue roof over the walls and pillars of our school, I held my breath for a moment, thinking, you know – goodness me! I have not been living in vain!

This is not my effort, not my merit alone. My colleague Mugoya Swaliki and myself, we are the team made in heaven; we crib and fight and yell at each other and hug each other (just virtually) and finally, and we work from morning into night to settle things and to organize and to catch up, to build and to heal and to feed. I would like to believe that there aren’t many people out there in this world, who work so well as we do.


And then, the merit, huge and complete, goes to the people that made this possible. Friends, your list is so long, your names are so many, I cannot list them here. But I hold you all in my heart, even if you sent 5 euros or 1000 euros; all have been important and not a cent of your effort and love was wasted. We have come so far – a land, the foundation digging, bricks, cement, walls, pillars, the roof! Millions of construction materials and thousands of details I knew nothing about – I am not a construction engineer. But I learnt with love and with effort, and the budget for each little thing that was needed for the construction, was prepared with great love.

Here we are today, with the HOCT school almost done. Of course, there are details to be added – windows and doors, a kitchen, a toilet, little things, but compared to the effort undergone so far, this is absolutely fantastic. Let us be proud and let us celebrate.

One of the highlights of our activity is to install electricity for the families in our care. It is a little bit expensive, as we install solar panels and the company that provides this service also offers a small TV with the panels, so I think it is well worth.

Today, with Daniel’s help (not tagging you in order to protect you from pirates) we have installed electricity, solar panels, light-bulbs and a TV at Kubona’s house. I am so very happy and the girl is overjoyed.

Kubona hasn’t been doing very well at school last year, and now we thought of giving her a little bit of extra-motivation. She will have light to do homework in the evening and she will improve her language skills through watching TV. I am very happy that we have managed this. Those photos, very plain and raw, depicting the installation process, offer us a very good “window” into how things look like, over there.

We should remember this more often – that while we enjoy all the sweetness of modern life, with electricity, running water and healthcare, there are others for whom such services are unattainable luxuries.

Kubona is very grateful today; let us be grateful as well.

Every once in a while, old and new friends of HOCT entrust me with a little amount to buy food for children in need – either children that need more food, or those who have never received anything.

Below, just an example of someone’s grace and kindness – there are many such people out there, just like Maria, I will give them thanks as they allow me to, and as photos accumulate.

I am happy and grateful. It costs 10 euros to feed a child without sponsor. You give 10 euros and HOCT gives a little bit too, and together we can get a good 14 kg of food, which is life-saving.

So if you can spare 10 euros to buy food for a child who’s never received anything, you may have just saved a life.

The angel below, Maria, fed 7 children (apart her own permanently-sponsored girl).

PayPal: contact@helponechildthrive.com

This child, who has been so so sick, has been discharged from the hospital today morning. We are immensely grateful to all of you who helped him.

You saved a life; be proud.

It’s been a long and beautiful day, filled with the joy of accomplishment. At HOCT, our dedication and hard work have brought about incredible progress in numerous areas. We’ve successfully managed food distribution, ensuring that those in need received nutritious meals. Birthday gifts were delivered, spreading smiles and happiness to the children who could not attend the party yesterday.

The construction progress has been remarkable, bringing us closer to our goal: the HOCT school!

On top of all these achievements, we received good medical news about Kidumbulu Musa, lifting our spirits and reinforcing our commitment to our cause. At HOCT, we approach each task with great love and compassion, always striving to make a positive impact in the lives of others.

Progress of our roof at HOCT School construction site!

It is taking shape very nicely.

A Little Story

At various intervals, people ask me how I got involved into HOCT, how it all started, what happened, how am I doing this, why…
It is a very beautiful story – perhaps the most beautiful of my life.

For me, HOCT started in 2019; once upon a time, while scrolling on Facebook, I stumbled upon a post by Mugoya Swaliki who was asking people to write letters to the children in his care, so that they’d develop their English skills. I wrote letters to a few of them and learnt a little bit about the mission he had imagined – helping the poor children in his village.

One day, I received a photo of Mpakibi Madina, holding the letter from me to her chest. The letter was in an A6 envelope, and her little waist was… the size of that envelope.

It broke my heart.

You how how sometimes you stumble across photos that are absolutely horror, of children on the verge of death because of starvation – and birds of prey circling them in the hopes that they’d die soon?

That day I told to myself: I am going to change this photo. Those photos. Any horror photo I receive, I will make it better.

Thus began HOCT, with Mugoya and myself as navigators through an ocean of mistrust and poverty. And then slowly-slowlyy, because of my good friends, good reputation, because of a few good people that trusted me and started helping a child, because of Mugoya’s good an impeccable work, HOCT began to grow.

At the beginning (in 2019), HOCT had 19 children. Today, in 2024, we have 600+ and we keep growing. We built a library, a hospital, we are about to finalize the construction of our school. We never take days off; wherever we go, HOCT comes along.

Each day, ech of those 600 children has food to eat and a good shelter. To the best of our abilities, we nurture their health, we get them life-necessities, such as clothes, basins, pots, charcoal; some of the children attend school.

HOCT is a good place. It is registered legally in both our countries, we pay the necessary taxes, the workers receive fair pay and nobody is exploited. We remove children from labor and we buy them football t-shirts so that they can play and be happy.

For all that matters, we feel we do not live in vain.

In the photo: Mpakibi with the letter from me.
She has now grown, she is healthy, I fixed her house; sometimes, she smiles.