Manitha's story

Laura was the first to spot Manitha. In a room full of playing children, it seemed as though she had been forgotten. Lying in her pink metal cot, she pushed her right foot against the floor, swinging the cot from side to side, an act of stimulation rather than defiance.

For the past year, she has been a regular at NYEMO (www.nyemo.com), a Cambodian NGO which provides education, vocational training and employment opportunities for women who have been victims of domestic violence, prostitution or sex traficking and childcare for their children. Manitha would spend the day with other children of mothers who attended the NYEMO project, while her mother benefited from one of Cambodia's most highly-respected local charities.

But six months ago, everything changed for Manitha. Her mother, who had become increasingly ill, took a turn for the worse and within a few days became another victim of HIV/AIDS in a country with the highest rate of infection in all Asia.

The social worker at NYEMO counts Manitha as 'lucky', because she has managed to avoid contracting the disease the killed her mother. But with her mother gone and her father absent and unknown, Matila is now the lone orphan girl at the project for mothers and their children.

To make matters worse, she is also paralysed from the neck down and the left-hand side. In a country where thousands upon thousands of children are orphaned each year, with the majority waiting in vain for someone to adopt them, Manitha is at the bottom of the pile. Her disability makes her far less desirable than a similar-aged fully able girl. Even her other relatives have declined the opportunity to care for her since her mother's death.

Although staff at NYEMO are looking for an orphanage for her, the future does not look bright for Matila. For the time being, the harsh reality is that she is an unloved and unwanted outcast in a city full of so many unloved and unwanted outcasts.

Laura and I would not describe Manitha as 'lucky'. A with many of the orphaned children living Cambodia, we know that what she needs now isn't luck. She needs a miracle.