Yellowknife (Jun 16/06) - Six months, one plow and an unforgettable experience later, Jennifer Stroeder is planning to return to Swaziland to help out a group of “lost boys.”

Stroeder volunteered at an orphanage and youth care home in Swaziland, a little African nation sandwiched between South Africa and Mozambique.

She returned home to Yellowknife in May, and hopes to go back to the African country in January.

“It was the best thing I ever did,” she says. “I can’t wait to go back.”

“Those are my boys,” Stroeder said with a smile and shining eyes. “They are so sweet and wonderful and full of life.”

The boys she speaks of are either orphaned due to parents dying of AIDs, or are abandoned on the streets by parents who do not want them.

Stroeder said that in cases where women with children are widowed and remarry, the man they remarry has the right to decide whether or not they want the women’s children from their previous marriage.

The women most often choose to marry the men, rather than keep their own children, so these boys end up in the street, she said.

Girls are not often dropped off on the street, as they are considered a very precious commodity, for domestic and sexual reasons, Stroeder said.

Stroeder volunteered with Manzini’s Youth Care and MacCorkindale’s Orphanage through the Teaching and Projects Abroad in the United Kingdom - an organization that matches people up with where they most want to help out in the world.

Manzini’s was started by Father Larry, a Catholic priest who saw the need for a home for street boys.

There, they receive education, food, clothes and a warm and loving place to sleep.

Stroeder found out about MacCorkindale’s through the youth care, and her efforts with both organizations have created somewhat of a partnership between the two.

Manzini’s Youth Care is looking to send more of its volunteers over to help out at MacCorkindales in the future, she said.

Her parents - Kevin and Allyson Stroeder - visited her for a few weeks and brought a plow that had been bought through the generosity of Yellowknifers.

The plow fit onto the front of a tractor, Stroeder says, which they used to make a road, naming it “The Yellowknife Road.”

Youth at the orphanage now have easier and safer access to the town, especially for the younger boys who attend school there. They had to use a long, unsafe path before, Stroeder says.

The road also allows vehicles to get through to the house, which is situated on 240 hectares of land.

“There are already mango trees and crops growing on the property, thanks to the plow.”