People sometimes ask me why an orphanage cares for teenage mothers. My answer is always the same. A girl who becomes a mother at fourteen or seventeen is still a child herself. She still needs protection, guidance and the chance to grow. We do not get to choose only the easy children to love.
This season our shelter welcomed two more young women. Their stories are not mine to tell in detail, and to protect them I will not. But I can tell you that both arrived having survived things no child should survive, and both arrived as mothers to babies who depend entirely on them. To separate them from their children would have been to break two people instead of saving them. So we took mother and child together, as we always do.
Care here begins with the basics: a safe room, regular meals, medical attention for both mother and baby. But safety alone is not a future. That is why we surround these young women with counselling to help them carry what they have been through, and parenting support so they can raise their children with confidence rather than fear.
The newest addition to the shelter is a small sewing corner, and it has changed the atmosphere completely. Alongside their studies, the young mothers are learning to sew. At first it was simply something to do with their hands. Now it has become a skill, and with that skill has come a quiet kind of pride I cannot put a price on. A girl who can make something is a girl who begins to believe she can build something.
My promise to every teenage mother who comes through our gate is that motherhood will not be the end of her story. We have already seen young mothers return to school after settling in with us, and one who lost her child found the courage to ask to study again. We said yes, and we will keep saying yes.
The goal is not to keep these young women dependent on us forever. It is the opposite. We want them to leave one day able to stand on their own feet, to provide for their children, and to look back on this home as the place where their second chance began. If you have supported this work, that second chance has your fingerprints on it.
