Rwanda-Zaire

In 1994, two Sisters j oined a CARE Australia team working as volunteer nurses in Nshoda Camp in Goma Zaire where their special focus was children 0-2 years old who formed a section of the three thousand 'unaccompanied' children. Their hope was to re-unite some of these children with their families, but unfortunately because of malnutrition and diseases, including AIDS, more than half the babies in their care died in Goma. Conditions were appalling, but the Sisters wrote with humour and infinite compassion about their young charges. They were jubilant when some of the children began to respond to their singing and were ecstatic on the rare occasions when parents were re-united with their lost children. This was 'healing the broken-hearted' in the true sense. Because of the high value placed on their work, both Sisters were asked to return to Rwanda for a second period. Once again their task was coordinating the work with unaccompanied children. It was heart-rending to try to help babies who, in developed countries, would have been placed in Intensive Care Neo-natal Units; many of the babies were so tiny and fragile that they died.