Autistic non-verbal child in South Africa

[Psychonaut]

We have a family friend in South Africa who has a 7 year old autistic child called Tristan. If you know anything about South Africa or Africa in general, you will know that these countries are pure survival of the fittest and the weak have no chance. The weak get robbed or killed with no regard for their life and their weakness gets taken advantage of. Being able to not rob a weak person is a luxury that hungry and desperate people living in pure survival mode do not have. I don't want to trash South Africa too much - I love the country - but I am trying to paint a picture for the people that have no idea what living in Africa feels like. It is harsh and I am thankful every day that I was born in Germany.

Tristan has caretakers that take care of him at my friends house and he doesn't leave it very often or at all. He is non-verbal, wears diapers, the doctors have given up on behavioral therapy, music therapy and all the therapies that are usually done are not available. A proper multi-modal therapy like in the west is not possible, drugs are given, but effects cannot be monitored by EEG. It takes months to "evaluate" if the drug helped or not - as the doctors are just "randomly" trying stuff. This is a country if you are sick you are dead and I have had two family members that died 10-20 years earlier just because they lived in SA. I don't want another case.

I have been raking my brain trying to think of ways to help Tristan get out of this situation and get him the care he requires. So far I have read half of the "A Symphony in the brain" book that is on Leo's booklist and my friend has actually reached out to a Neurofeedback practitioner nearby. The more I think about it, the more I feel like Tristan needs to get out of the country and into a country in Europe. But my friend doesn't have enough money and the currency is so weak that only very rich people can emigrate. The rest is stuck there for their entire life with no hope of anything getting any better.