Ruel Foundation

Miss I didn't have a chance form the beginning! Number 10 out of a family of eleven there was just not enough food to go around. The only food I got was rice water! The left over water after the rice was cooked. When our staff spotted her on the floor of the small shack where the family lived it seemed that it was simply to late. Pauline gently lifted the baby into her arms and held her. Barely alive, Miss I was taken back and placed in our centre for malnourished children. Doctors examined Miss I and suggested she had about seven days to live.

Mr R started his life as an innocent child playing with his friends in his Manyan village in the mountains of Mindoro Island in the Philippines. Then one day his life collapsed. His mother died suddenly and he was virtually left along at the age of two. Deeply traumatised by the lost of his mother, Mr R refused to eat. While the Tribe were extremely distrustful of any outsiders, they decided to contact the Ruel Foundation and ask for help. This expression of trust was unheard of for this tribe and reflected the work of the Foundation in the village over the last year or so.

Ruel lived in and isolated village on the isolated island of Eastern Samar in the Philippines. Born with a double cleft lip and pallet he had problem swallowing food - assuming that there was food to swallow, which there wasn’t! The fact that his parents didn't really want him, limited his life expectancy considerably. He became so weak his parents finally brought him to the local hospital where he was discovered by David Cowie, the Founder of the Ruel Foundation. With no money to pay for any kind of medication, the nurses put Ruel was put on a saline drip and “hoped for the best”.