Stourbridge couple travel to India to visit sponsored child

Stourbridge residents, Peter and Jane Baxter, have just returned from India where they visited the boy they sponsor, 16-year-old Samya. Peter and Jane have supported Samya for over seven years through child development charity, Compassion UK.

Samya lives under the care of his parents in a community in East India where houses are typically constructed of dirt floors, mud walls and wood roofs. Most adults in Samya’s community are unemployed but some work as day labourers and earn the equivalent of £7 per month.

Before the trip, Peter and Jane had built their friendship with Samya through the letters they sent and received, “It was a long-awaited experience to meet Samya,” reflects Jane. “We are always thrilled to receive his letters, but now we will be able to visualise what he writes. It was such a joy to meet his friends and family and see his smiling face.”

“After sponsoring Samya for so long and spending time with him, we found it very emotional to leave him. But we are confident and pleased to know he is part of a very loving extended family, and through the project he will continue to grow and be a role model for younger children. It was a long awaited experience to meet him, we’re proud he is growing into such a fine young man.”

Peter and Jane also sponsor 13-year-old Ingabire from Rwanda, whom they have supported for over seven years.

For more information, photographs and interviews contact Ella Dickinson on 07840 203332.