She was 16-years-old. Her mother re-married and moved away to live with her new husband. She was left to live with her mother’s father, or maternal grandfather. He thought she was pretty and started having sex with her, but threatened to kill her if she told anyone. She found herself pregnant, and again she was threatened to say the baby was someone else’s or he would kill her.
The neighbors began seeing her belly grow and started asking questions. One of them went to social welfare to report the case because they feared for the teenage girl’s life. Social welfare had her moved to a hospital far away so that she would be safe until the baby was born, and the grandfather was arrested.
Last week the baby was born, and because there is so much shame around this story, the family did not want the baby to come home. They also knew that the baby would not be safe from people who wanted her dead. That is how a newborn baby girl came to us on Friday.
It’s heartbreaking, infuriating and evil, but that is the world we are all living in.
We now have 426 children living on Project Canaan and they are growing like weeds! 13-year-old Gabriel is the same height as me (or at least he was yesterday), and little Noor is the new mayor at the baby home. We have recently gone through a brain tumor scare (which turned out to be an abnormality) and then there are the cases of tuberculosis, HIV, measles, mumps and chicken pox. We go through waves of ringworm, bacterial and other fungal skin problems, and our nurses are always discussing new things that we have not seen before.
I would like to share a great news story about our little boy named Innocent. He had TERRIBLE allergies and spent the first few years of his life scratching his skin raw. We finally did some testing and found that he was allergic to wheat, dairy, eggs, and peanuts. You can imagine what a challenge that has been for our kitchen, who prepares more than 1,000 meals a day for kids and staff. We got his diet nailed, with the help of Laurie MacPherson, and his skin has been clear for years.
Two months ago, we decided to slowly reintroduce one item at a time to his diet. And guess what?? He is no longer allergic to dairy or wheat! What a huge blessing that is to everyone involved. We will introduce eggs next month, and finally peanuts with a doctor present.
Emmanuel was also allergic to chicken (only .06% of the world has a chicken allergy!) and has successfully passed the chicken test and is happy to be eating chicken and rice with the rest of the kids.
Every day is a new adventure. We care about the big picture, and the littlest of details, because a little detail to us might be a big thing to our staff or children.
Janine Maxwell, COO & Co-founder Heart for Africa