Many years back I used to teach in a children protection centre after work. This was a voluntary job. These kids are not orphans, they have parents but were abandoned or abused (it’s very heartbreaking).

There was one kid, he was 6 and quite a rebel - he was new to the centre, his mom abused him repeatedly, and his dad abandoned him. He kept waiting for his mom to come pick him up.

It took me a long time for me to establish trust with him. He was a very smart kid, he picked up maths on a whimsical. During Christmas, I got all the kids gifts, but I intentionally got him the largest train I could fight. He was the so proud to have a gift taller than him. He didn’t even open it for a week and slept with it. Later on I learnt it was the first gift he ever received.

I taught for a few years and eventually moved away to a diff state for a diff job. But I’ve always wondered what happened to this kid and the rest of the kids and how their lives turned out. I will never be able to understand how people have the heart to abuse their kids