Wednesday, June 17, 2009
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Ande Coccimiglio
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Welcome to this blog. My name is Andra Coccimiglio and I have a friend from Rwanda. When I heard her tell me about the children of Rwanda I knew that I personally had to do something. Did you know that more than 13 million children under age 15 have lost one or both parents to AIDS, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa.
By 2010, this number is expected to jump to more than 25 million.
Rwandan orphanages are full to overflowing as the result of twin scourges: the 1994 genocide and epidemic disease. During 100 days of genocide in April 1994, more than 800,000 Rwandans were murdered. Children lost parents and relatives, entire families were wiped out, and the lives these children had known were shattered. By the end of the genocide, hundreds of thousands of children had been orphaned. With a widening HIV/AIDS epidemic and continuing outbreaks of malaria, a total of 613,000 orphans were living in Rwanda by the year 2001. Over 43% of these children have been orphaned by AIDS. UNICEF officials in Rwanda have called the HIV/AIDS epidemic the "silent genocide."
Today, Rwanda's children continue to face extreme challenges:
- Rwanda has one of the world's largest proportions of child-headed households, with an estimated 101,000 children living in 42,000 such households.
- More than 400,000 children are out of school.
These sound like hopeless facts yet together we can make a difference by sharing of our means. I'm hosting a benefit dance for orphans in Rwanda fund to be held on May 17, 2009 at Wheelers Farm. I invite you to join me in this worthwhile event. Please feel free to contact me with questions: andracoccimiglio@hotmail.com or
call (810 )718-3936