During my recent trip to Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina where I had to go to obtain new documents (the old ones had been stolen in Uganda), I met some dear friends. They continually follow our work in Kivumu and, regardless of distance; they are always by our side and are ready to help us at any given moment.

They gave me a great idea. They suggested that I bring multivitamin tablets with me for the malnourished children. Those small tablets, which can easily be found in every store in developed countries and are as well, very cheap - here in Rwanda are as scarce as water in the Sahara Desert... and they cost a fortune.

That’s why, among other things, I used my return trip from Europe to ‘load’ my travel bags with multivitamins, those precious nutrition supplements, which will certainly help the malnourished little children of our parish in their recovery.

Of course, the multivitamin packets needed to be paid for somehow, and in this I was once more selflessly aided by the Mission Office in Zagreb, Svjetlo riječi from Sarajevo, and many other dear friends from Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Everything arrived just fine in Rwanda and Kivumu, and the multivitamins were handed over to the nuns who work in the local dispensary – a clinic which was founded in our parish by the late fra Vjeko Ćurić.

The sisters were overjoyed, because they say that the fizzy tablets are going to be an excellent food supplement for the children – a source of essential vitamins for improving immunity. And in our parish, where many families eat a warm meal just two to three times a week, there still exist a lot of underfed children. The most severe cases are taken to the dispensary for seven days and there the sisters care for them and monitor their progress.

Even after the children leave the dispensary, they are required to report once a week for an examination in order to check their health. They also get food and vitamins for the next seven days. And so it goes one week after the other. We try in all possible ways to insure that our parishioners receive the best possible care. And that is something we wouldn’t be able to do without our faithful friends!

Translated by: Branimir Mlakić
Edited by: Valerie Kae Ken

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