One Stop to Healing

Come on a journey with me!

Across the bridge

Up the big hill

Down the scary hall

And you'll find the One Stop Center at Queens hospital donated by UKAid.  This is a center for victimized children.  It allows the process of abuse to be less painful and more efficient by having counselors, police, and doctors available to handle the cases all in one place that is child friendly.

 John and Patricia from social welfare work in this office.  This is Patricia. 

This is the interviewing room.  Kids can play in here while they wait for the next step in the process.  A counselor will do their best to comfort the child and get them to talk about their abuses.

The mirror in the play room is a recording room for police and social welfare to document the abuses the child talks about.

This is a resting room since the children sometimes want to sleep if they have come from far away villages and it has been a long trip.

This is the examination room doctors use for sexual and physical abuse victims.

This center was only recently opened and already can get up to 5 children a day.  If a child is raped in the villages it is up to the parents to report the abuse to the Chief.  If the Chief decides to report the abuse they contact police who bring the children to this center.  As the center becomes more known the numbers rise.  Before many abuses went un reported or cases were lost due to paperwork being passed between facilities.  This way everything is done at one place making it less of a burden for the child and their family to report these incidents.

Two days ago a six year old girl was found being sex trafficked to anyone willing to pay 20 kwacha.  That is equal to 6 cents.

Sexual abuse of children in Malawi is a huge and devastating problem.  The Fountain of Life is an organization working at this facility providing counselors for the children.

I am going to volunteer on Wednesdays at this location to help with the continued therapy of previous victims.  They all love to see Zahara so far and hopefully we both can bring these kids some joy.  

Being able to report these cases are the first step to awareness and stopping the abuses of children in the country.

Share the awareness by clicking the facebook button below!