By Lee Koelzer | Director
This in Annet. Her parents passed away when she was very young and an elderly couple in the village took her and her siblings in to raise as their own. All three of the kids belong to House of Hope, but fortunately they had a warm loving home to live at- just no money for school. The family lives in a two room mud hut on a hill about a mile away from House of Hope and the kids walk to and from school every day. As the family had no mattresses and just slept on blankets on the dirt floor, Annet built herself a raised bed suspended above the ground on a raft of poles. She covered it in dried grasses, then topped with banana leaves to make it soft and comfortable. The day I first went to Annet’s house she was 12 years old and EXTREMELY proud of her bed. It’s one of the cutest and most resourceful things I have ever seen! (Since then we have supplied the family with mattresses and other bedding to help keep them comfortable and warm.)
When Annet was 13 she started menstruating. In rural Ugandan culture, this marked her as a woman and it was time for her to be married off and start a family of her own. This was rather heartbreaking as she is such an intelligent and ambitious young woman! She loved coming to House of Hope every day and had a passion for learning.
So House of Hope Director Jenifer had a meeting with her guardians. One reason girls are married off when they reach ‘maturity’ is because they are an extra mouth to feed, and her family was taking care of her siblings as well as a couple other unrelated children they had taken in. Jenifer negotiated with them that if Annet could remain in their house and stay in school, House of Hope would cover addition costs for them housing her- such as her clothes, hygiene needs, extra food, and supplies. House of Hope was already providing her schooling and all her school supplies. Her guardians agreed, and Annet remained living with them for another six years until she graduated from O level High School in 2016.
Since then, she has married a husband of her choosing and they have a beautiful daughter together.
Annet is a success story. She was fortunate to have a family who loves her and an organization who supported her. With your love and support success stories are possible. With your love and support, the hopeless are hopeful.
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