The Bundu Bunch get to Write their Names

Sipho feels sad and ashamed.

Sad because he has no family to belong to anymore. Ashamed because he cannot write his name like other children can.

Sadness and shame turn to joy and pride in the first of this series of inspiring stories based on the real lives of AIDS orphans in southern Africa.

Allan Low has worked with rural communities in southern Africa over a span of 45 years. He is the author of a textbook on how farm households respond to new agricultural technology (Heinemann, Portsmouth N.H.; David Phillip, Cape Town; James Currey, London). Allan currently lives in Wetherby, UK and manages the charity he established with his late wife in Eswatini. The charity, SHAMBA, works with communities to enable their most disadvantaged children gain access to high quality early years care and education.

Elizabeth Sparg uses gouache and coloured pencil, with digital editing to create her playful and painterly illustrations. She was selected as one of the winners in the 2021 Picture This! award for, then unpublished, illustrators.