I feel like an emotional wreck tonight. Just watched Channel 4's 'Slumdog Secret Millionaire' where a London based millionaire goes over to Mumbai to see how the other half live - working on rubbish dumps and sleeping on the streets...
I then watched a video on the BBC news website of 2 children being dragged out from the carnage in Haiti. 5 days they'd been trapped.
Then earlier today I was sent an email from LPA [Little People of America] c/o an e mailing list I belong to for short people which features a list of children including:
2 year old Dillon - can count to ten and is already potty trained. He brings a smile to everyone around.
Adorable 6 year old - favourite things to play with are cubes and cars. He wants very much to belong to a family.
Boy 10 - desperately needs a family. Once he hits 14 Chinese law forbids him to be adopted.
The list actually goes on and on. These are all children who are waiting to be adopted. And what do they all have in common? They all have some form of short stature so they have been placed in homes, orphanages, call them what you will because they have been rejected by their families probably because of their disability. Most were in China so I guess they have been given up because that isn't the 'one child' the parents want.
If we think we still have a long way to go in terms of awareness about disability in this country I guess it's nothing compared to the countries these children have been abandoned in.
