
Mary Beckenham, co-founder of New Life Home Trust with her husband Clive. Photos by Tanner Wendell Stewart.
A Place to Die With Dignity
Mary Beckenham, co-founder of New Life Home Trust with her husband, Clive, was serving as a nurse in Kenya when she read a heartbreaking story about HIV-positive children in a hospital in Kenya. These children were put in isolation wards and given little food — or hope.
“Nobody knew what this disease was,” Janet says.” Everybody was scared of it. Even the medical fraternity was scared of the disease. There was a time we thought that if you touched an HIV-positive person they were contagious.”
Mary took one of these abandoned babies home to care for him in what she thought would be his last days. Mary says, “I thought, even if it’s two hours, he’ll be bathed, he’ll be loved, he’ll have the best two hours of his life in my arms.”
To Mary’s delight and surprise, the baby survived — and thrived. He is now a healthy 26-year-old. Mary says, “When I saw the baby survive, I thought, ‘If this one survived, what about the many others?’” And so Mary and Clive embarked on a journey to rescue more at-risk children, including HIV-affected infants.
Today, advances in medical care and ARV (antiretroviral therapy) treatment mean that infants exposed to HIV and given ARVs soon after birth usually become HIV-negative, and children who are HIV-positive can expect to live long, productive lives and experience normal child development milestones.
Some children at New Life Home Trust who are HIV-positive have never been adopted and are now teens. Caring for them can be a challenge, but it is one Janet and her team approach with the same love and care they give to their infants.
They focus on helping teens stay hopeful, goal-oriented, and committed to taking their ARV medicines.
“We help our older kids to know it’s just a disease,” Janet says. “Somebody else has diabetes, somebody else has something else. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.” Under their care and guidance, children are going to school, taking their medicines, and some will soon be applying to university.
“It’s just incredible,” Mary says, “to think this started as a hospice. We never imagined it would grow like it has.”