When we walk the streets of our Western cities and towns, with shops full of produce and pockets full of money, it is difficult to imagine what life is like in the Third World. As we think choosing a shade of the new sofa is a problem a woman in Africa has to walk 12 miles every day just to get her children a pot of water. What it is to be growing up in subsistent economies is even a more terrible picture.

There are so many problems in the Third World it is difficult to point out all of them. Besides war, famine, lack of proper medicine and education, Africa in particular suffers from the AIDS pandemic. In Malawi about half of the population is infected – a staggering unbelievable number. Children of Malawi take the greatest toll of the tragedy. There are about a million orphans in Malawi and very few ideas about what to do with them.

Luckily attention was brought to this problem by a music superstar Madonna when she adopted a boy called David from an orphanage in Malawi. A foundation was started called Raising Malawi that takes steps to battle the overwhelming number of orphans in the country. What is more important is that legislation is finally created to help foreigners adopt children as Malawians cannot do it themselves. There is hope at the end of the tunnel. But it’s up to me and you to make things change.

African children, Children of Malawi, Third World countries Hide