the carers

This is about carers who care for the ill in the family. By a very rough and under-estimate, in Britain alone, there are some 175,000 children [18-minus] who care for their either parent. Like Gemma Gingell, 13, who goes home from school to shower and feed her father who is nearly blind, has multiple sclerosis and housebound. She and her mother have been caring for him non-stop for ten years.When her dad is in the hospital, she has to miss school and is called a skiver, taunted...Besides, that it is not right for a 13 year old to shower her father as it affects child-parent relationship, her whole life is distorted.There are many such instances.

And, it can only be imagined what the state of affairs is in the Third World where there is no Government Health support, no special care expertise, no council flats and no compulsory education...For example, the front girl in the painting shows Evangeline Uwanyiligira, 14, keeping vigil by the side of her mother Judith, suffering from AIDS in Rwanda. Evangeline already has her younger brothers and sisters to look after.

There is no reliable statistics available for carers as such, including adults. The number can only be guessed world-wide - in the US alone there are more than 50 million people who are care-givers. The USA has a population of 300 milion, the world - more than 8 billion.