Rwanda is one of the smallest countries on the African continent and also the most densely populated. There are about 525 inhabitants per square kilometre! Because of its natural landscape, Rwanda is known as the “land of a thousand hills”, and because of its history, also the “land of a thousand problems”.
18.08.2023
“We were frightened when she fell over. But the really chilling thing was the silence when, instead of crying, she didn’t get up. You could feel that the whole world was holding its breath.
We only keep in touch with Melat’s dad via WhatsApp, as he has never stopped looking to the farthest corners of the world to save his little girl. He firmly believes that somewhere there is a new therapy that will help his daughter to return to good health.
One afternoon while playing, Melat tripped and hit her head on the floor. A few tens of minutes later she was in the intensive care unit, but fell into a coma. And once she awoke from it, huge neurological changes came to light. Melat’s parents were frantic with despair, even turning to a clinic in India for help. The response knocked them off their feet – no one knew how to help.
Melat’s parents refused to entrust their daughter to hospice care until the end. It was like admitting that they had run out of options to save her. Hospices are used to be considered as dying places and palliative care as a form of treatment that is actually surrender, but as we managed to convince them, nothing could be further from the truth. Here, the most important thing is life!
We give Melat medication and carry out regular rehabilitation. The effects are visible – Melat has started to react. She makes sounds, cries, laughs. She reacts to the voice of her favourite carer, who treats her like her own daughter.
Every reaction is a huge success.
Looking into Melat’s eyes, we see – she literally fights for every grimace and gesture. The doctors’ diagnoses are against her, theoretically irreversible changes, but she nevertheless snatches another moment of normality from life every day. And we firmly believe that she will not stop there.
Melat has been with us for three years; she is one of our youngest patients. Please support her in this fight by giving her the best present for now on her 9th birthday – a day of stay and rehabilitation in the hospice. We are sure that the day will come when, thanks to your support, Melat will be able to say: Thank you.
26.08.2025
An hour’s walk to school. Under a tattered uniform, notebooks that simply dissolve during the rainy season. Disappear. Education is not just learning to read and write. It’s the only lifeline you can grab when fate has been pulling you down since birth. It’s the promise that your story doesn’t have to be the same […]
23.05.2025
On Wednesday, 21 May 2025, a ceremony of special significance took place at the Presidential Palace. On Humanitarian Aid Day, the President of Poland, Andrzej Duda, honored people whose lives bear witness to extraordinary dedication to others. Among them was Sister Maria Piątek, director of the only hospice in Rwanda—run by the Polish Sisters of […]
11.02.2025
No one can tell another person what the meaning of life and suffering is. Each of us must find that answer on our own and take responsibility for it. To answer the question asked by Viktor Frankl: “What gives my life meaning?”. In Rwanda or Congo, few have read his bestselling book, yet somehow, every […]
