EDP readers’ donations giving new lives to thousands of children in Rwanda

The grim yard at the Noel orphanage. (Image: James Ruddy 2010)

A unique 'Thanks A Million' message has been sent to EDP readers for 20 years of incredible giving to help save miracle children such as little Musa.

For the past two decades YOU have handed over £1,000,000 to the newspaper's sister charity, Hope and Homes for Children, which has created new lives for many thousands of youngsters like him.

And this week, the beaming boy offered his thanks for the generosity which has given him a new loving family home after his mother threw him down a toilet to die soon after he was born.

At his Rwandan home where he now lives a new life, the nine-year-old clutched a thank-you card and was hugged by one of the charity's key patrons, TV's Nick Hewer.

Musa is all smiles with his new family. (Image: James Ruddy 2010)

And the veteran of Countdown and The Apprentice paid a special tribute to 'the incredible kindness' of EDP readers for such non-stop giving for so long.

'It's a terrific example of 20 years of consistency because fashions and fads come and go these days and people just seem to dip in and out,' he said.

'But charities can only plan if they have some sort of constant revenue stream and that's precisely what they had from the EDP as the messenger and from its readers as these amazing donors.'

He was speaking during a visit to Rwanda to see how the charity was helping children like Musa and closing the horrific orphanages where thousands like him spend many loveless years.

A disabled young man rests quietly in a wheelchair at the orphanage. (Image: James Ruddy 2010)

His message also supported the launch of a new Numb3rs appeal by the charity, which aims to raise more money to help the likes of Musa – with every pound donated being matched by the UK government.

Today and next week the EDP will be highlighting the charity's work in Rwanda where it is shutting down orphanages and giving their occupants new homes with loving families.

• MUSA'S JOURNEY FROM ABANDONED BABY TO BEAMING NINE-YEAR-OLD

Ten feet below ground in a dark and stinking 'long-drop' toilet, baby Musa could easily have died very quickly from drowning and the noxious fumes.

But somehow, the infant – whose own mother had thrown him there – clung on to life long enough to be dragged to safety by a neighbour alerted by his mournful cries.

When the tiny waif arrived at a local hospital he was already in a critical condition from ingesting the filth which had almost consumed him.

Desperate doctors fought against the odds to save him and succeeded, launching him on a journey which may have started with brutality but now sees him enjoying life in a loving home.

This heart-warming result is beyond Musa's wildest dreams and down to the efforts of staff working for Hope and Homes for Children in his home country, Rwanda, through painstakingly tracing his relatives, who adopted him.

After leaving hospital in Rubavu, the undernourished boy was to spend most of his life growing up in the grim Noel orphanage, tucked away in the pretty north-western resort town on the shores of Lake Kivu. He was lucky. His poverty-stricken mother died in prison, where she was sentenced for abandoning him. His father also died.

But it was Musa's paternal aunt who was traced through six months of detective work and was found to be agreeable and suitable to adopt the youngster into her family of five of her own children.

He is one of thousands of cases of Rwanda's heart-rending tide of abandonment. The causes are many and complex, from desperate poverty, to illegitimate births and the legacy of genocide which created a tragic army of orphans and a previously little-known dependency on orphanages.

This week, I joined one of the HHC's well-known patrons, TV's Nick Hewer, in visiting the depressing Noel institution which the charity aims to shut down for good by next April.

Such closures are the key to HHC's work in this beguiling land where staggering natural beauty has been marred by outbursts of unspeakable human savagery.

With almost half its people battling to survive below internationally-accepted poverty levels, dumped children like Musa are all too common. We saw more than 100 of them at the ironically-named Noel; some were physically and mentally disabled adults, in their 20s and 30s, rocking together on wooden benches in dark rooms; others were babies and toddlers, lying together on thin blankets on hard floors, with just a few staff to help them.

The wailing of troubled voices filled the air, along with the words of desperation and resignation from youngsters who were living empty lives, without love or hope.

One toddler with a swollen head lived in her cot, rocking from attention deficit syndrome, her face a blank image without any expectation of human contact. Another disabled girl was facing upward in her brown cot, flicking her hands continuously outward, as she smiled at the movement she had achieved. Her family visit and the charity workers are hoping they will take her in.

The Dickensian conditions proved particularly moving for Nick Hewer: 'I found it a very depressing place, for the lack of anything other than shelter and some sort of food.

'At present the Noel orphanage has only 104 people within its walls. I can't imagine what sort of hell it can have been like with 500 of them.

'It would have been like a scene from Dante's inferno where you have tiny children mixing with disabled adults. There were young men of 20 who have nowhere to go and lead a listless life, just hanging around.

'I found it a very sad place, certainly not a place with any love at all.'

The institution was set up in 1954 with church support and is one of several which HHC has arranged for closure. The charity's local staff have set in place its widely-admired shutdown model, which has already succeeded in closing the doors of hellish institutions as far apart as Romania, Albania and Moldova.

Key to the strategy is partnerships with national and local authorities, which creates the closure framework. Next comes the HHC staff detective work in finding and reuniting the orphanage children with their biological families, sometimes with their original parents. Another option is adoption with well-prepared parents, as well as the creation of special small units for some of the disabled children.

Before the institutions are closed, staff also set up education programmes and community hubs where impoverished and vulnerable parents can get support for themselves and their children to prevent them falling into abandonment.

Among the support in Rwanda, micro loans and other practical help have given grindingly poor families the chance to grow bananas as well as rearing goats, pigs and chickens for cash. Some even have that highly prized African asset, a single cow for producing their own milk, cheese and, ultimately, meat.

Soon after we left the Noel, we met Musa and his new family, an aunt, five siblings and a building contractor uncle, in a setting which was a universe away from the Noel's forbidding walls and debilitating darkness. Here was the living embodiment of what HHC has been achieving with hundreds of young lives, giving them a home with a family of 'brothers' and 'sisters' .

For business expert Nick, the whole process and the latest matched funding appeal is 'a given'.

'You are pushing at an open door with me over the whole argument that a child is better in a loving family. It's always the better option, given that the family is the right one for the child.'

Nick said he was desperately keen to help HHC, despite a busy schedule that includes the return of BBC One's The Apprentice with Lord Sugar and Karren Brady in an October 14 and 15 double bill.

'Here I am again trying to help in in whatever small way I can to raise money in this 2-for-1 UK government charity matching appeal.

'Frankly, in business it's a no-brainer: you give a quid and suddenly it's two quid. That seems like such a good deal for the charity. It'll also double HHC's impact and lift vulnerable families out of poverty.

'We've all got to support it in whatever way we can, bearing in mind that a quid buys you a hell of a lot in central Africa.'

As we left Musa, he was playing football with his brothers in the garden of his new home, a huge smile on his young face.

He would certainly have agreed.