Small price to save a child

From now on, just one of those little extravagances I don't even need will be forsaken – for the sake of a nine-year-old girl called Thembelithle.

She will be able to go to school every day and sleep at night with a full stomach. And all for 19 a month from my bank account. How many lipsticks can a woman justify when the cost of just one can change a child's life for four weeks?

I am now Thembelithle's Project O sponsor, a commitment which, if she stays healthy and manages to avoid the HIV virus, will last for as long as it takes her to finish her education – the only way out of poverty for children raised in the grinding poverty of KwaZulu Natal's Valley of 1,000 Hills.

Before leaving South Africa, I chose my sponsor child from a stack of heartbreaking photographs on a desk in Project O's office. Each close-up shot is of a child in need of care and support.

'She was among a group of children playing in the dust'

Choosing felt wrong. These are children, not new shoes, I told myself as I discarded dozens of grinning boys just because I wanted a pretty little girl. Even though something in Thembelithe's almond eyes touched mine, I still felt shallow as I plucked her from the pile – and from the lowest level of poverty.

I wanted to meet her, so I went with Thandie and Zomani, Project O's Zulu workers, to tell the step-mother caring for her and her brother and sister the good news.

It was a long drive to her home. We left the motorways, the glossy shopping malls and the gated communities with their luxurious en-suites and swimming pools to climb high up into the verdant hills.

She lives in one of the remotest parts of 1,000 Hills and as we wound our way along narrow dirt tracks, sheer, shimmering green valleys dropped away to the side of our ancient car.

As we approached her home, she was among a group of children playing in the dust with a battered football. They stopped and stared. A woman wearing a pink cotton housecoat, her hair in a turban, picked up the smallest child.

We made an incongruous sight; two blacks and two whites, smiling broadly as we dragged heavy sacks of rice, maize and groceries onto their tiny green hill.

It was easy to imagine what they must have been thinking: What on earth are these people doing?

Zamani explained in Zulu why we were there; still the family looked non-plussed. No one showed even a flicker of the happiness or gratitude, I'm ashamed to say I'd expected to get for my money.

But why should these people, who have never received any help from outside of their family, trust the beaming promises of a more bountiful life from four complete strangers?

The woman, Namusa, spoke a little English. Every day at 6am she leaves the children sleeping to climb the steep hill to catch a bus to her job. She works as a gardener, returning back at 6pm. She married the father of Thembelithle and her brother and sister in 2004, a year before he died.

She has a three year old of her own, and with the help of the grandmother, cares for seven children in total – including Thembelithle's orphaned cousins.

She thanked me for the food and agreed I could take photographs of the family.

But just as I was about to click the shutter, my sponsor child ran away and disappeared into one of four traditional circular huts.

A few moments later, she was back in the line-up ... wearing a clean pink T-shirt and a pretty grey cotton skirt! Like any little girl the world over, she wanted to look her best for her photographs.

As I looked through the lens, her puzzled yet inquisitive almond eyes looked straight into mine. I felt I could see what she was thinking; can I dare to believe that this woman will make a difference to my life?

As I settled into my British Airways seat for the flight home, hers was one of the amazing little faces that suddenly my mind was filled so vividly with.

I was jetting back to my life, and all the trappings and luxuries the hundreds of motherless, fatherless, hungry, barefoot children I had met in my time in the Valley of 1,000 Hills may never even live to dream of. I pulled on my sleep mask to block out the light and the world I'd re-entered. And I cried and cried.A five-year-old girl foraging for food on a rubbish dump inspired Sheffield 32-year-old Martin Downs and his wife Vashti to launch their charity, Project O.

Vashti came across the child while out in the hills with fellow volunteers from her church, Metro.

"We were handing out leaflets about our after-school clubs and we had seen many cases of extreme poverty that day," remembers the 30 year old.

"But when I saw that hungry little girl searching for scraps on a tip, I had to do something."

The girl was Temba, an orphan who was being cared for by her gogo, the Zulu name for grandmother, as are so many children in the 1,000 Hills.

Vashti found that gogo Janet was unable to walk. "The two of them were so helpless. They had barely any food. I rang my mother in tears and she promised to send money every month to give to them.

"That was the start of it all. We realised that, if one child could be helped through sponsorship, then many more could, too."

Two years on, Temba and her gogo, Janet, still live in a crumbling, mortar-clad home with an outside toilet and a standpipe for fresh water.

But there is now plenty to eat and Temba is at school every day.

Janet has become friends with Vashti Downs and her workers. The 60-year-old smiles at the memory of a day trip to Durban beach with Vashti and Martin.

It was the first time Temba had seen the sea and, in a restaurant on the way home, Janet held a fork for the first time in her life.

Janet tells us: "When Vashti came to help me, I thought it was an angel from God. Some of the things she has done for us. I can't put into words how it made me feel. I know Project O will look after her when I die."

Project O has now become a registered South African charity with staff, vehicles and a property to its name. Fundraisers and church donations keep it going and sponsors paying 19 a month provide monthly food deliveries, schooling and uniform for 65 children.

Unlike many big charities, Project O is able to give 85 per cent of sponsorship money directly to the child. The remaining 15 per cent goes on staff wages and transport.

"I know 65 kids is a drop in a huge ocean, but a drop is a drop," says Martin. "There are thousands of children, whose parents have died of Aids, who are living in terrible conditions in the rural areas."

Project O has big plans. The Project O property is about to be launched as a Visitor Adventure Centre. Gap year students, voluntary workers, church groups and organisations can book dormitory accommodation from 10 a night (or 190 a month) or double rooms with en-suites at 25 a night.

A Project O school is also in the pipeline and there is money to build seven staffed homesteads for orphaned children. Only a wrangle over land ownership is currently holding up building work.Any amount of money, raised through an event or from a small personal donation, is welcome.

A donation of just 6 will pay for one child's primary school education for a year. Just 20 will pay for an older child to go to senior school for a year.

To fully sponsor a child, commit to 19 a month via a standing order or direct debit from your bank account to Project O's account at Lloyds TSB Bank (account number 04617317, sort code 30-97-51).

Send any donation cheque, made out to Project O, care of Jo Davison, The Star, York Street, Sheffield, S1 1PU.

If your organisation or group would like to book a Project O Visitor Adventure holiday, find out more from the website www.projectO.org.

Martin Downs can be booked as a speaker on his return to the UK in December. Please email [email protected] or [email protected]