Donny never knew his mother or his father and was left on the streets of Haiti to fend for himself.

And Isnalan was a child slave who tried to end her young life at the age of five by drinking the cleaning product Clorox.

But both of these children are alive and well thanks to the efforts of the Eden Garden Orphanage in Haiti and Bermudian Phillip Rego.

Mr. Rego decided in March this year to sell his company and embark on charity work. What started as a trip to help feed 60 orphans at Eden Garden, quickly turned into much more as stories like those of Donny, 14, and Isnalan, 10, captured him.

He said: "He (Donny) came up to me and called me his father. He gets taught during the day and pulls the rest of the school together in the afternoon as he sits there teaching them. It's like one huge family.

"He doesn't have a mother or a father. He told me he used to do anything for food.

"There was this artist who had an orphanage and he took him in and he gets his artistic talent from there.

"When that fell through he came to the Eden Garden orphanage. He's got lost of possibilities and I am processing his passport now and hopefully he can get out."

Mr. Rego has now helped Donny and the others by raising thousands of dollars to continue the orphans' education, to ensure there is enough food on the table, and put a roof on the centre's medical clinic.

A medical centre that helped save 10-year-old, Isnalan who has been at the orphanage now for four or five years.

Isnalan was found in Port-au-Prince where she was a slave and had drunk Clorox to try and end her life.

She was brought to the orphanage's medical clinic because an American doctor was visiting at the time and he made the decision to send her to a hospital where they did not want to give her oxygen, which is in short supply, because she was in such bad shape.

However, eventually they were convinced to give the oxygen and after a night of prayer she made it through.

Mr. Rego added: "They call her the miracle girl or she's the 'white girl' because she drank Clorox. She's a very serious girl but take five minutes and put your hand on her shoulder and she changes.

"If they came out of Port-au-Prince then they were child slaves. If their mother is not alive they will do anything for food. Once aged 11 or 12, a girl is in trouble.

"Half of the kids are a story untold. If they came to the orphanage their parents have died or the parents cannot look after them."