Orphanage In Dire Need Of Funds

By Patricia Maganu
Staff Writer | Monday June 16, 2008 00:00

Founder and caretaker of the centre, Patricia Bakwinya, says that the children have now resorted to their old ways of drinking alcohol, dropping out of school and engaging in sexual activities - at times with dire consequences.

Things started falling apart at the centre when Bakwinya had a car accident in 2004. 'I was injured so I had no way of raising funds and the children ended up resorting to the very wayward activities that we were trying to keep them away from,' she said. To make it worse, the centre was burgled and vandalised. Thieves broke in and stole almost everything from stoves, office furniture, books, and fridges. 'They also broke windows and doors,' she lamented. Bakwinya said that before the setback, they used to feed orphaned children and there was a pre-school on the premises.

'Now the children just come to the centre but we have nothing to offer them besides our support because we have no money,' she added dejectedly. Shining Star was founded in 1999 and became a place where abandoned, orphaned and street children went when they had nowhere else to go. At its peak, it had over 500 children. 'Some of our children have died. Most of the children that we had vowed to take care of have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS and without proper care, some of them could not survive,' she said sadly.

'It is very painful because without the help of the centre, no one was helping them with medication and follow-ups to the hospital. So they died of AIDS related illnesses,' she added. She said other children have gone back to the lifestyles that the centre had been discouraging them from. Some of them have become pregnant. 'When the centre was still active and we had the children under control, we discouraged them from engaging in sexual relations but after we fell apart, there was no one to advise them so we now have about 20 grandchildren adding to our registers,' she said. The centre has 550 children registered aged between two and 18 but now it is unable to take care of them. 'At this point we cannot feed them or offer them anything. They just come here in the evenings for support and advice. Other than that, I do not have anything to offer but most of them are very strong willed children because even though we do not have anything to give them, they keep coming and try to take care of the little property that we are left with,' she said.

Currently Shining Star Orphan Centre is battling to pay electricity and water bills. Bakwinya said though they have since resolved the electricity issue, there is a water bill of a significant amount that is outstanding.

'The water bill is around P11,000 and we have not been able to pay. I don't see how we are going to pay if we do not get help,' she said. She explained that they have tried negotiating with the Water Utilities Corporation, that they were a non-profit organisation, to no avail. Bakwinya accused the country's leadership for being partly to blame for the collapse of the centre that was a ray of hope for orphans in Monarch. 'S&CD did not support us when Barclays Bank wanted to give us P100, 000 and they wanted to do so through S&CD but we ended up losing the money because they delayed. The leadership did not support us. Just because the bank wanted to do things according to procedure, we lost the money,' she recalled bitterly.

She complained that the S&CD sabotaged the centre because they kept saying that they would arrange for the bank to come and hand the cheque but never did. She said that they also lost P585,000 that they were supposed to get from Local Government, NACA and the Office of the President. 'I don't know what happened to the money. There are so many stories. Apparently the money just disappeared into thin air,' she said. She added that they have lost some of their property to auditors.

'We hired auditors and we were not able to pay them. We owed them about P10, 000 but when they came to the centre in my absence, they attached around P300, 000 worth of property,' she alleged. Bakwinya said that some politicians took advantage and used the centre as a way to get money. She alleged that in May 2005, one councillor in the Monarch area said that he had donations for the centre from BP and Shell Botswana but they never saw the money.

'The American Embassy was there, UNICEF and some Members of Parliament. BP had donated P7,500 while Shell had donated P5,000 but the money never made it to the centre. When he was asked he said that he had used it, just like that,' she told Monitor. In 2004, Bakwinya was accused of mismanagement and possible misuse of funds donated to the centre by different organisations. But she says  that the centre is faced with problems and the children are experiencing hardships and they are just waiting for some Good Samaritans to come and help. She says there is hope because the Ministry of Local Government is planning to help them soon.