A Visit to SIP Home - A home with positive children

Be Positive - A lesson from South India Positive Network - Respect to Noori Saleem- SIP Memorial Home, Chennai

These 'Positive' children teach us how to be really positive in life.   Yes, you got it.  The children I am talking about are the HIV Positive children who live in SIP Memorial Home, in Kolathur in Chennai.    When you visit them, you will find smiling faces welcoming you and greeting you the best wishes for the day.  Every day is a challenge but they teach you that challenges are just there to overcome.   Every day is bitter with anitretroviral medicines taken twice to survive...but they show what sweetness in being alive every dawn is.  

I asked them very casually, how they are studying...They smiled and said - super.   Then came my next question inadvertently..What you want to be when you become big?   Most of the children gave a big smile.   One said that she wants to be teacher, other said- a collector, and one boy said that he wants to join Army where as other innocent little kid said he wants to become a police.   

Within a second, I realized what the biggest hope of all of them as they grow-   to be alive.   To be healthy.  To be away from the tentacles of death as long as they can.   

Shame to those who think of suicide as a solution to issues in life. To those who run away from simple problems   Shame to those who blame others for their problems in life.  Shame to those who who fail to take care of their own responsibilities.   It is unfortunate to those who destroy their own lives by getting addicted to smoking, drinking, drugs, laziness, frauds, anger, frustration and ego.   These children though are filled with millions of viruses within eating the hours of their lives and keeping alive with the ART treatment and care and love showed by their light 'Noori'  - who herself is a transgender HIV positive,  have everything positive in them that make us think.

More than books and clothes, their rooms are filled with rows of medicines that keep them away from the physical suffering due to the illness.  Same time, their hearts are filled with gratitude to every single day and every single friend who visits.  All they want is your touch, your smile and your hug to those little one's.  They don't want your sympathy or stigma to be shared.  

Being in the social work for several years, and also having known about them from Thilak, my friend who runs Sevai Karangal, we felt the visit is most wanted as we started the year.  For what the place gave us was a big wide strong message -  BE POSITIVE!

It is destiny that 5000 children in Tamilnadu alone are tested HIV positive, either infected or effected.  However, with the big hearts like Noori and her friends most of these children live in a positive environment trying to lead normal lives.  SIP Homes and the service is a god's way of showing the existence of humanity in the society.  The need for acceptance, the need for love and the need for care are all just the simple wants of these real POSITIVE children!  God bless them.

SIP Home, Chennai

To read more about them, please check the below given references:

1.  http://www.asiantribune.com/node/21679

2.  http://www.amaidhi.nl/en/sip-memorial-home

3. http://www.apachanet.org/inner.php?do=interview_detail&id=149

Happiness is getting to celebrate our son Ajay's birthday with these wonderful children:-)