A ray of hope for orphaned children

As such, many have succumbed to emotional turmoil and perennial thoughts of their late parents.

The retreat camps that the government has introduced to provide the psychosocial support have proven that indeed, such children are bottling up unbearable pains. This is a programme where orphaned and vulnerable children are taken on a tour to a totally different atmosphere from where they live, be it in national parks and game reserves, to refresh. One of the activities is grief counselling where the child is expected to express his or her feelings through the talent he has, and this helps social workers to identify and centre on the specific problem the child is facing. Most of them do it through drawings, which depict how they are treated as 'outsiders' by their care-givers, while others recite property grabbing and others contemplate suicide.