LITTLE Tony in India is now 11 and has been savagely challenged since birth; tiny right arm, no left arm, a wobbly little left leg and no right leg.
Tony gets around by rolling on the ground and he does it well. He will tell you: “There is nothing I can not do, it just takes me a little bit longer.”
His powerful attitude of winning over adversity is inspirational and after featuring Tony on my Nationwide programme on RTE, people were moved to abandon plans to take their own lives. They telephoned and said so.
Tony changes lives everywhere he goes.
Twice I travelled to India to care for him when he was in peril. And I thank the SMA Fathers of India, the Don Guanellan Fathers, and a holy lady of India, Sr Valsa of the Convent of St Ann. They all made Tony and me their most welcome guests.
The people of Newry and Mourne gave me £18,000 to take to Tony and his special friends.
We bought the bus for the “smiling angels” of the Don Gualellans and provided funding for a heart operation for a little girl known to the SMA Fathers. All was done in Tony’s name.
Now Tony is threatened like never before and I am helpless (almost) to save him.
In two months time Tony’s “mammy”, the ageing English lady who has been his carer for the last 10 years must leave India and may not be allowed to return. Tony and the lady will be parted forever.
The boy who, at most, has 10 years left to live, will lose his mother. Tony will be placed in an institution.
We can help. We can stop this happening. And please regard this from here on as a begging letter. I have become good at that. I need, for a six-month period, the sum of £25,000.
The money will be lodged in an account and will fulfil the demands of bureaucracy that are involved in the adoption process.
That amount, for six months, will allow Tony’s “mother” to adopt him and take him to live in France and to the very special school that has been found for him there.
Tony’s quality of life will be assured and his last 10 years will be the best that is humanly possible.
There is someone out there in the caring heart of Newry and Mourne who God has selected to make this happen, a person of means who can lend the amount with the legal guarantee of it being returned.
With confidence I place this in the hands of the good God.
Nameste.