Alina came to Harja when she was three. When our then project manager was given permission to take her, she took her clothes and bundled her out of the orphanage as quick as she could before they could change their minds. In the orphanage she had sometimes been forgotten, always in a corner, often in pain from the frequent ear infections she had. Those infections have left her deaf, in spite of an operation she had in the UK, given by a generous surgeon.

Since passing her school exams, she has been invaluable at home, helping to look after little Lala and Gabi. She has spent two months in the UK looking after the young sons of our friend and supporter Reverend Martin Lane, and has found employment with the priest in Harja, who runs a daycare project for children of poor families and also an old people’s home.