Hello

We are Marieme and Ndeye, and we are 3 year old conjoined twins from Senegal — and we now live in Cardiff with our daddy, Ibrahima. You might have seen our story on BBC (see iPlayer video here and online feature here).

Life is not an easy road for us, but we have defied medical expectations to still be alive and living our best lives together as sisters who cannot be separated. Our bodies are working together and in harmony to keep us both as strong as we can be, although our condition is described as 'life-limiting'.

Our daddy is helping us to set up a foundation in our name called "Conjoined Destiny" to help raise awareness of our condition and to help others who may be suffering with similar complications. Because of our condition, we don't know how long we will be staying with you and hope we can get help from you to make our dream of helping other children with complex health problems in the UK and in Africa, to get the practical help they need to live independent and dignified lives. 

We want to help to lift the stigma of disability for other children in Africa through education programs and give them equal chances and the best of opportunities in life. We want to help pregnant women in Africa to have free access to scans to detect at the earliest possible any abnormal development.

We would also like to support the two organisations that have helped us the most in the UK:

Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity — especially helping their research into birth defects and heart. We want to support research because we would like to help reduce the number of children born with birth defects such as heart conditions that Marieme has.

Tŷ Hafan, leading Welsh charity and children’s hospice — who has been there every step of the way for Marieme and Ndeye since we moved to Cardiff. Tŷ Hafan is a hospice that offers care, comfort and support to life-limited children and their families, and they focus on providing opportunities for families to create special memories together — and thanks to them, we have magical memories as a family. For Tŷ Hafan to offer this unique service completely free of charge to families in Wales, it needs to raise £4.4 million a year, and we want to help them to continue the incredible service for years to come.

Please give whatever you can to help raise funds for these two wonderful organisations and to assist us in our project — because no disabled child should ever walk alone.

The funds will be split as follows:

50% to Conjoined Destiny

25% to Great Ormond Street hospital

25% to Ty Hafan children's hospice

Thank you

Ndeye, Marieme and Ibrahima Ndiaye