There was a time in my life where I would be very easily angered. Maybe it was someone saying something stupid. Or doing something stupid. Or just generally acting like a chop. Either way, their stupidity would literally make my blood boil to the point that I couldn’t control my raging anger towards them. It simmered down a whole lot when I took myself off the pill and I find that now, I’m a much more controlled individual. (Can you hear my family sighing with relief?)
However there’s still one thing that makes me want to hone my Dexter skills and that’s the abuse of children.
I cannot deal. I will not deal.
For a very long time I have had it on my heart to be a place of safety for children that need to be taken out of abusive home situations. I haven’t been able to act on this because we were in the throws of having our own children. And even though I like to overload myself, I didn’t think it would be fair to any of the kids (ours or theirs) to try and take that on in this phase of our lives. But when I read stories like this one, I can’t help but feel the need to get involved in whatever way I can.
(This is a fairly sensitive story so if you don’t do well with those, maybe don’t read this part. But it’s stories like these that happen every day that we need to see. That we need to read and soak in. Stories that we need to take to heart so that we can be truly motivated to do something about it.)
Akhona* was admitted to Red Cross Children’s Hospital after she was raped by her uncle. Akhona’s mother had left her in the care of her uncle, trusting that as a family member, he would have her best interests at heart. Sadly, this was not the case. After the child protection office at the Hospital got involved, an investigation started and a police case was opened.
The uncle was arrested and confessed to the crime. He has since been sentenced to 20 years imprisonment. Akhona was discharged back into her mother’s care and continues to experience severe Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder including inappropriate sexual behaviour. Akhona’s mother has slipped into a manic-depressive state. After Akhona’s rape she attempted to commit suicide. Through hours of therapy it was revealed that she too is a rape survivor, having lived through chronic sexual abuse at the hands of her grandfather 25 years ago.
Akhona’s story is an example of how pervasive sexual violence in our society can be.
* YOU DO NOT NEED TO KNOW HER NAME TO KNOW THAT SHE DESERVED A CHILDHOOD
I mean how do you even start to process something like this. And this is just one of 10 stories I was sent by Red Cross Children’s Hospital, which are 10 of about 50 stories like it that happen EVERY MONTH! It’s heartbreaking. Absolutely devastating and I know that if you feel like me, you want to do something to make it stop.
So let’s do something about it!
Let’s help these children. Those kids who have been taken away from abusive home situations and saved by the Red Cross Children’s Hospital.
Unfortunately during this time of the year these cases are more prevalent as the alcohol/drug abuse is higher than normal. Which means that the child protection packs that the Red Cross Children’s Hospital put together for children (that are taken out of their homes with just the clothes on their backs), won’t be enough.
This is a great way for us to get involved!
So what I am doing is providing a collection point for all of you that would like to donate towards these packs. (You can message me directly for the address to drop it off at). Once I have all the collections, I will supplement anything that is missing and deliver it to the Red Cross Children’s Hospital.
If you would like to get involved these are some more items that we would need.
There are other ways to get involved too…
- If you would prefer to send through money – you can donate directly to the Red Cross Children’s Hospital here.
- You can also donate used toys, clothes and well, basically anything that you no longer need to the Friends of Red Cross. They will either use this to give to mothers/fathers/care givers that have needs when they bring their children in or they will put it in their shop.
- You can go to the shop and buy second hand things (some are even new as they get donations from companies and then sell them in the shop.
- You can donate unused airtime directly to the Red Cross at the end of the month.
We are going to pop in to the shop next week, so I’ll you a better idea of what is there.
Please, please do what you can to get involved!