Papers

Our Wishes for Our Children living with HIV/AIDS

To have anti-viral medicine.Many of our children do not have the citizenship documents required to receive government benefits...

(taken from HDF wish list)

All of us need what we called 'papers' to get around or get what we need. The police in Malaysia put a 18 year old to jail for 6 months upon failing to present his personal identification; Illegal immigrants has to get their way to other countries without valid papers; Hong Kong citizens get to have two passports so they can live elsewhere when the island is too 'packed' or 'politically unsafe'; Malaysians who works or study in Singapore or Australia try to get Permanent Residential Papers so that they could get benefits from the respective coutries, so that their child can have a cheaper education in the country;

I can think of more but right now, I see two urgence of getting papers for the kids at Mercy-- One, to access to education; Two, to get medication benefits from the government.

A very normal story, a bright girl who has just been selected to study abroad. She has the qualities that others don't posses: serious, determined, adventurous, courageous, understanding, but right now she hasn't got the right paper to send her off. She needs to find her birth mom and dad's signature.

The search has been going on even before I was on leave. The staff has brought her all over Bangkok, to ask about her mom's whereabout. A sex worker that has no intention to have a child, this kid was passed around through many hands. To cut the long story short, from neighbours and passer bys, they managed to find her birth dad. First time in her life (how was it certain through this method of looking?) , she has a dad. THey are planning for a second meeting in the holidays. Not the crying and shaking-in-tears , blaming scene I was expecting.

Her mom, still no where to be found. One neighbour has one of her photos from many years ago. That is the only trace...

Story like this happen to many other kids here...all we hope is to help as much as we can.

If this problem cannot be solved, the opportunity of studying abroad might be passed down to the second best choice, someone who does not deserve as much as she does.

Is this a fair fight?