A coat that prevents coughs

Godelieve Ndayizeye, seven years old and in 1st grade, used to go to school coughing or decided to be absent to school when mornings were very cold. Two months ago this situation changed. Thanks to World Vision’s gift-in-kind, she is among more than 2,000 children who benefited from a new warm coat.

Godelieve comes from a poor family that does not have enough resources to satisfy their basic needs. Godelieve lives in the central plateaus of Burundi in Rutana Province, southeast of Burundi where there is cool weather.
She used to go to school coughing. Cough was intense in the morning and evening; Beatrice Nisubire, her mother had realised.

Beatrice Nisubire, Godelieve’s mother, knew that her child had a cold and needed warm clothes; nurses at a nearby health facility had already mentioned it when Godelieve was once admitted because of breathing problems.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t get warm clothes for her child. Such clothes are not available on the local market of their rural area, Beatrice explains.

To get warm clothes would involve to going to the capital, around 120 miles away. Even when those clothes were available, parents could not afford them, because they have no money.

Godelieve’s mother believes that her daughter will be able to perform well in school.
Many times, she had a hard time to wake up Godelieve in the morning. She would wake up but still resist going to school in the morning because it was too cold for her or when it was about to rain, Beatrice recounts.
“Now I am happy she is enthusiastic than she used to be,” the mother tells.

Beatrice hopes that getting warm clothes for Godelieve will impact her success in school. She sometimes missed classes because of cough or cold. But for the two months since she got the coat, she has no cough and attends school regularly.