Happy New year everyone. Hope 2021 has been a great start for you all!

The year 2020 was a very difficult one, for most it was a proper squeeze as loads of families had to carry out drastic cuts to the already very dire situation they were in. Hence in the build up to the Christmas holidays, the idea of being able to afford Christmas presents for their children was not even to be discussed. However, at Tardio we felt children should partake of the joy of Christmas no matter how small, we feel that Christmas creates special memories and we wanted the children we could reach to have a beautiful memory in a year which was so tough all the way through. We therefore came up with a project tagged Xmas Gift-Away which was aimed at sharing presents and put smiles on the little faces of children who perhaps may never have received a Christmas present.

We reached out to these children with gift packs which were presented to them and also gave school uniforms as presents to some children who we had previously identified as needing some for school as prior they had to attend school in own clothes.

We were encouraged by the fact that we were able to do a little to bring some joy to these children at the end of such an unprecedented year.

The smiles, joy and happiness we brought to the little faces sent tears streaming down our faces.

So many times in life, people face situations which cast a dark shadow over their seemingly captivating imaginations which they have pondered upon for months or maybe years and tend to flatten all they had envisaged and seemingly causes all to disappear completely or cast them further into the future. So many a times, such turn of events seem to occur when the near accomplishments of those plans are within one’s grasp.

These sort of scenarios causes one to despair and sometimes lose hope altogether. Speaking to some of such people, words which seems prevalent are, “it happened just when I was about to accomplish this” or “at the last few steps of reaching the goal, this happened etc”. Unfortunately, these situations when they occur can be so devastating that a majority of those who find themselves in such situations seldomly recover and could end up coming across as to have given up hope, depressed, or even worse off.

We live in a world which is so fast paced where everyone is getting on with their lives and activities and it has become increasingly difficult for people to stop and actually observe these things around them and truth be told , it Is getting worse. Somehow, just a few years ago, it seemed we had more than twenty four hours in a day when compared to today, we seemed to have all the time to notice the down trodden and had the patience to lend a helping hand to those in need. However, society has successfully reconditioned the thinking of most that they hardly have time to handle daily challenges which life seems to voraciously throw at them to even give the form of consideration which seemed normal only a few years ago.

Being very aware of these circumstances and the fact that a lot of people tend to experience this level of sadness at a very young age prompts us at Tardio to want to act swiftly in order to see what level of assistance we can render because we look beyond the now into the future and hope that our early or timely intervention can rekindle that dream which was once so real in peoples live but seem to have been diminished or placed on the back burners of their lives, will cause these to once again look to the future with hope.

In life, sometimes all one needs to some level of encouragement which can spur them on to do what prior could be considered the unthinkable , the assurance that a support system is available for them, a pat on the back to embolden them to take the next step, or a smile of approval which enables them realise they are heading in the right direction is all it takes and there is no imagining what they can go on to accomplish.