Annie Liu Sponsors Two Rwandan Girls

By melodyc January 19, 2019

Earlier, actress Annie Liu (劉心悠) visited Africa to see firsthand the plight Rwandan girls in poor villages and refugee camps have long faced. Shouldering the responsibility of an ambassador for the Plan International Hong Kong, an organization helping children in developing countries, it was her first time getting a taste of flying to a developing country for charity work. While there, she unexpectedly took on sponsoring two kids.

The sponsoring of 10-year-old Dannie and her 4-year-old sister Pakalian comes with a story. After the girls’ parents died earlier, they became orphans along with their three sisters. Seeing that the youngest was only a baby, their 70-year-old neighbor started taking care of them. However, the oldest child, 14-year-old Latifah, is forced to be the breadwinner of the family.

Every morning at 6 a.m., Latifah would go to a nearby brickfield to transport brick for money. She would carry 20 pieces of brick on her head 15 times back and forth – a total of 300 bricks by midday – for 300 Rwandan Franc per day, equivalent to a meager 2.6 HKD. Afterward, Latifah would attend classes. “I definitely feel very fortunate,” Annie said after reflecting on what she was doing at Latifah’s age. “The family has so many people and a lot of them need food to go through puberty, so I decided to sponsor two girls.”

Through sponsoring the two girls, she hopes it will encourage more people to sponsor kids to improve children’s lives.