smile | Help One Child Thrive

(yet again)

A lot of beautiful work was done today, and also more funds for the Windows have arrived! Truly thrilled and happy about all our common accomplishments!

Enjoy the photos of these sweethearts and be happy that such kindness exists in our world!

For the new friends to know, as well as for the old friends who keep asking: we do not ask the children to smile. Some of them do not even know how to smile, some of them do not wish to, most people from this culture prefer not to smile when their photo is taken, but…

MOST IMPORTANTLY:

The children should not need to feel that they must do something for their food. What shall I tell them: “Smile, or your sponsor will be upset?” I cannot do that. It is not ethical.

If they smile, they smile. If they do not smile, then they do not, and it should be perfectly alright. They really do not need to do anything for their food, they do not need to “deserve” it.

I smile. Each and every single day of my life, I work on HOCT tables, communication and finances, and regardless of what the people tell me (which varies from “thank you” to “what if this is a scam?”) I keep my smile and do not let my happiness wither.

I smile, but they do not have to.

I love Mondays. My energy is always very high and we work with good energy at HOCT (and also in my other daily activities). I’ve never had a Sunday blues, because on Sunday afternoons I usually prepare my work files and tables neatly and colorfully and I elaborate my weekly strategy, which already gives me a boost.

When we start working on Monday morning, our energy is high and we all know what to do.

Many children have come to receive their food today at HOCT, after we have brought the heavy shopping to the office. When I look at how thin my African colleagues are, I do wonder how can they lift such a heavy load. I once saw my colleague Mugoya carry 30 kg over his head. I mean… how? Yeah, alright 🙂

Some of you usually ask me why the children do not ever smile in photos. This idea was completely absent from this culture – smiling in photos, or taking photos, or sometimes… just smiling, because when life is so hard, it is difficult to smile. But lately, they started to smile, spontaneously; we do not force them in any way, as you well know. And when a child smiles with sincerity, we can all see it and their long-distance parents are overjoyed. Just last week I saw Odele Meddy smiling widely – and I think it was an absolute first for him.

I love loading photos at the end of my day, to show you all the fruit of people’s kindness. I am not posting this to my merit, but to the merit of all the good and wonderful people that offered a little something to feed a child, to do a good deed in this wounded world.