Eight-year-old Orecchi can still manage to flash a grin sometimes - a remarkable feat considering his circumstances. He suffered a serious head injury when the Haiti earthquake demolished the house of a friend he was visiting.

At the same time, his sister Madeline was buried in a collapsed church building. It took 2 days before she was discovered and pulled from the rubble. She now lies wrapped in bandages on a stretcher outside the Hospital Universitaire La Paix.

Orecchi and Madeline also lost their own home. When the quake struck, 3 houses slid down the hillside completely demolishing their house. Miraculously, their father Rosmond had stepped outside seconds before the quake hit and his life was spared.

As Madeline recovers in hospital, Orecchi is now living on the street with his mum and dad, sleeping under the stars on plastic sheets.

The 3 of them have nothing but the clothes on their backs. Orecchi’s mother, Marie Rose, says she did try to wash them once, using water from a drain. She has not tried it again. She says she hates living on the streets.

“You can’t find anything that you need. The streets are dirty and they stink,” she says.

They have run out of money to buy food and water. When World Vision spoke to them in the afternoon they had not eaten all day.

But the family haven’t lost hope. “God is going to help us,” Marie Rose says.

World Vision is providing medical supplies such as dressings, antibiotics, tetanus shots, and materials for the treatment of broken bones to La Paix hospital, where Orecchi and Madeline are receiving treatment.

Read latest updates about World Vision’s response and children sponsored by Australians here.

You can donate to the Haiti earthquake appeal here.