JSM - Edition Two

L ove I s T hicker T han B lood - continued Lily wakes up to find Barbara’s surprise. She knows why she put these three websites on and instantly knows that her passion is in one of these. The websites bring up more and more questions that Lily is eager to know the answers to. She already knows the basic things like what is an orphan. An orphan is simply a child who has no family to look after them and most people adopt a child because they can’t have a child and they want a family. She also knows that many conditions must be met in order to get the right to protect a child. But this wasn’t enough information for Lily. She knew she needed to know everything about orphans if she wanted one of these jobs. She looked at what felt like a thousand different websites and even found out that orphans where also called adoptees, so that meant she was an adoptee, how weird. One of the questions she had was, what are the personal challenges that orphans are faced with? Lily did know the main answer to this since she is an orphan. She knew that orphans can have some feelings of abandonment and the thought of your birth parents giving you up for adoption can bring up feelings of rejection, that’s what she feels like sometimes. But after research she found that most orphans in third world countries live on the streets and are sometimes forced to look after their younger siblings, not just themselves. Orphans in third world countries are also usually underfed and often don’t get an education. Lily felt more empathetic for these kids now and doesn’t always think of herself. Living in the orphanage Lily was sure no one could get unluckier than her, but now the torture zone didn’t seem that bad. Every year 2,000 children die in orphanages out of the 10 million children that grow up in orphanages. That made her feel even more fortunate with the orphanage she lived in, but she felt sad that other orphans had to go through that. Of course most of the information was statistics, all the boring stuff like, over 71 million orphans live in Asia, 59 million live in Africa, almost 9 million live in Latin America and the Caribbean Islands, 31 million live in India and around 650 thousand live in Nepal. She found absolutely everything you could possibly know. She was ready. Chapter Six: The Project “Welcome to the show,” Waleed announced in a bold voice, yet you still couldn’t hear him over the thunderous sound of the audience applause as Lily’s introduction onto ‘The Project’ had finished. Lily sat on ‘The Project’ desk right next to Pete, her heart was pounding a million miles an hour. She gave the audience a soft little nod insisting them to stop clapping. “Good thing you did that or else they would have gone on for hours,” Waleed laughed making Lily feel more comfortable. “Thanks,” Lily mumbled waiting for the bomb of questions to hit her. “Let me just say, the things you have done to help change the way orphans are treated is unbelievable and you are only twenty-three,” stated Carrie. “Thanks,” whispered Lily. “Now for the one person out of a million who doesn’t know, what is UNICEF exactly?” asked Carrie starting the bomb of questions. “UNICEF, the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, is helping build a world where all children get the rights they need. It operates in 190 countries and territories with the focus on improving the lives of the disadvantaged children throughout the world,” answered Lily in a more confident voice. “Don’t want to sound like the dumb guy, but what are the rights of the child?” Pete asked as Carrie rolled he eyes. continued over page...

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JSM Edition Two