Meet Maria from the Pari Healing Home

The Pari Healing Home is a home specifically dedicated to orphaned and relinquished children with HIV. The owner and caretakers at the home are passionate about giving these children the opportunity to have a wonderful childhood; they work to ensure not only that their health is closely monitored but also that their whole person is supported. The children celebrate holidays with gusto, have opportunities to learn and participate in many extracurricular activities, and are given a special birthday celebration each year. The Pari Healing Home works hard to build up the children’s self-esteem and teaches them that they are valuable and can contribute to society just as much as the next person.

Rather than being locked behind the doors of an HIV home, children are given regular opportunities to interact with society. The Pari Healing Home has worked hard to educate its community about HIV, and they’ve had much success in this area.

We’d like to introduce you to Maria, one of the residents of the Pari Healing Home. She came to Pari when she was 7 years old. At this loving home for children with HIV, Maria has been able to receive steady nourishment and critical medical care.

Thanks to the diligent efforts of the Pari Home leadership to educate their community, Maria is receiving a full education from the local public school. The interactions with the non-HIV children/staff at the school are incredibly positive and provide the essential opportunity for Maria to be considered part of society as opposed to living her life contained within the walls of an HIV home. She is an attentive, hard-working student and typically has scores that place her toward the top of the class.

Now take Maria’s intelligence and couple it with a wonderful sense of humor, and you have quite a character! Here are a few examples of her quick wit:

• When asked, “Would you rather have cake or ice cream?” 9 out of 10 kids say either “cake” or “ice cream.” Maria creatively answers that she would like a brownie with ice cream on top so that she can have the best of both worlds!

• When asked, “What is a rule that you wish everyone would follow?” many children would respond with something like ‘keep your hands to yourself’ or ‘be quiet when others are talking’ — but not Maria. Maria would like everyone to follow a rule that sleeping late into the morning is required!

• When asked ‘What is your favorite holiday?’ 9 out of 10 kids will answer with expected holidays such as Dussehra or Diwali or Christmas. Maria answers that 2020 was her favorite holiday. She got to sleep in late and had lots of free time to enjoy!

This fun, hardworking, humorous girl has dreams of becoming a businesswoman who runs a restaurant chain from her large and beautifully decorated office. We love her confidence and believe the sky is the limit for Maria!

But what would be the case if she had not able to stay at the Pari Healing Home? What if Maria had lived in a community in which she was unwanted and struggled to receive even the most basic of foods? Would we still see this bright shining light of a girl with big dreams?

We are so thankful to be able to support Maria and another nineteen children who share similar stories. At the Pari Healing Home, they are being loved and celebrated and nurtured in a safe environment that is very attentively caring for their HIV+ status as well as their whole person.

Thank you to our wonderful donors for choosing to give generously with your love, prayers, and finances to support our mission at LWB to ensure that every child knows that they count!

• Would you be interested in sponsoring Maria in the Pari Healing Home? If so, please click here to learn more.

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