Stories of Hope

When I returned to Nigeria to spend time with the children, I began to learn the backgrounds of the teenage mothers in our care. The first is a 14-year-old girl whose beautiful daughter is now five months old.

She has only seen her own mother once and knows nothing of her father. She was born a twin and left with her grandmother as a baby. Her mother later returned and took her twin brother away, leaving her behind, and even instructed that no money should be wasted on her. Her grandmother refused to listen and continued to care for her.

Sadly, her grandmother died soon after. From that time she became homeless. No family member or neighbour would take her in, and she moved from one uncompleted building to another. It was during this time that she was raped by a stranger and, unknown to her, became pregnant.

A woman promised to take her to her mother in Port Harcourt, but instead she was taken to Benin City and handed to a man who placed her as a carer for an elderly bedridden woman. She was never paid. When her pregnancy became obvious, she was thrown out and returned to the streets, sleeping rough.

One night she fell into labour. A good Samaritan took her to the police, who brought her to a hospital where she delivered her baby girl in September 2024. Mother and baby have since settled into the Kerimat home, they are doing well, and she has happily returned to school. I have told her many times that she is special. She is indeed SPECIAL.

This story is about a 17-year-old girl who came to the orphanage with an eight-month-old baby. She was the only girl among three brothers and lived with both parents until her mother died, which is when her hardship began.

After her mother passed, her brothers went their separate ways and her father remarried. She was sent out of the house to live on the streets, where she began selling her body to survive. In the course of this she became pregnant and gave birth to a beautiful baby girl in May 2024.

The past eight months had been desperately difficult. She could no longer cope and was directed to take the baby to welfare, intending to leave her and return to the streets. She could not afford food or clothes, and she and the baby each had only one dress, washed at night and worn again in the morning.

We decided that, being a child herself, she also needed to be cared for. Both mother and child were brought to the Kerimat home. She has now settled in and her baby is doing well. All she needed was care and a roof over her head, and I am grateful we were able to give them exactly that.

The orphanage is growing as expected, and we have recently welcomed two children with cerebral palsy. It is with great sadness that we lost two-year-old Ebenezer in September, due to the severity of his condition. He had been brought to us paralysed from the neck down.

Ruth, his teenage mother, had dropped out of school when she became pregnant with him. Following the loss of her son, she asked for support to return to her education, and I have gladly agreed to help her do so.

We share this with heavy but hopeful hearts. Behind every child in our care is a story of struggle, and behind every young mother is a life that still deserves a future. Thank you for your continued support.