This is a photograph of a poster I noticed in the Yoseffe Basic School school about 2km from Mfuwe. This shows the distribution of single orphans (missing one parent) and double orphans (missing both parents) according to their gender and their school class. There are a total of 291 orphans in a school with 886 pupils (33% or one in every three pupils is an orphan). This gives an indication of the need for support and sponsorship in just one of the schools in the area.
The one reassuring thing about this chart is that it shows that there are fewer orphans in the lower grades, and this seems clearly to be the result of AIDS education which started here about 10 years ago (ie when the pupils in 4th grade were born).
This chart is just one of the indicators of the overwhelming need for help among the orphaned children in Mfuwe.
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