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Good News For Good Friday

New Zealanders will be waking up to Queenstown’s very own ‘Orphan Lady’, Sue van Schreven, on their television screens this Easter.

A new documentary about her charity, Orphans Aid International, will premiere on TV One on the morning of Good Friday.

The Orphan Lady, filmed by award winning journalist Rob Harley, follows the journeys of several of the many Romanian orphans rescued through Sue and her charity’s work.

Mr Harley’s first documentary about Orphans Aid International, Someone, Somewhere Loves Me, was released in 2008 and has been so successful that TVNZ has screened it on numerous occasions since.

One of these featured children is 11 year old Andrei. Rescued at three years old, he had never been bathed properly and still had part of his rotted umbilical cord attached. At three he had to learn to walk, to eat solids and to talk. He had to be held as he steadied himself to walk around his new home in the Orphans Aid International orphanage in Romania.

Sue is excited to be able to show the progress and what has happened with children that were first seen by New Zealanders seven years ago. “This is a story of hope and rescue,” she says. “I hope it will inspire others to reach out to those around them and believe they can make a difference.”

Sue started Orphans Aid International in 2004, after she visited Romania and saw for herself the conditions orphaned children were growing up in. Going around the hospitals and seeing children stunted and even disabled from neglect and a lack of love, she knew she had to act.

The first project established was a rescue home in Turges Mures, Romania. Centres for street kids in Russia and India came next. Now the charity is looking to expand into AIDS-stricken Uganda.

Since starting Orphans Aid International, Sue has done whatever was necessary to keep those projects going – sausage sizzles, auctions – anything that would ensure the orphans could continue to be cared for. There are now also four op shops around New Zealand raising funds for this work – in addition to the newly opened Fair Trade shop in Queenstown’s Terrace Junction. Invercargill, Hastings and Dunedin op shops feature on the documentary.
“There are more than 150 million children right now living without parental care,” Sue says. “The problem is big, but each of these children has a heartbreaking story. I had to ask myself, what wouldn’t I do, if these were my children?”

Set your alarms. The Orphan Lady premieres on TV One at 7:10am on Good Friday. It will also be available on TVNZ On Demand. Visit www.orphansaidinternational.org for information.

Orphan Lady Sue van Schreven, with Andrei (now 11 years old) who was abandoned with his sister in a hospital. Rescued at three in 2004 by Sue's charity Orphans Aid International. Photographer: Rob Hardy. © Rob Harley and Orphans Aid International.

www.orphansaidinternational.org

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