Another wonderful piece from our Kenya Team correspondent, Juliet Anyanzwa, showing how courage and determination can carry someone through the most difficult of times and lead to something better. The woman’s name has been changed to protect her privacy.
Life is like a riddle. You will never know your destiny until you’ve started your journey. Sometimes there is more struggling, frustrations and giving up along the way. There is always light at the end of the tunnel.
Here is the story of Furaha, a widow with 9 children who went through thick and thin to take care of her kids. As months turned into years, everything became difficult and hard to handle. Furaha has three acres of land but was unable to cultivate it due insufficient or unreliable source of water. She opted to start doing casual work to make ends meet. Most of the contractors liked Furaha because of her hard work and determination.
Through the mortar work, she was able to take her kids to a public school and also provide for them. During the construction of an edible classroom at the Permaculture Training Centre, she was given a chance at the construction and Furaha worked all heartedly; that impressed us. One of the employees from Word Forest decided to employ her as a house help. In April there was some rain. Furaha was given a loan advance, she cultivated one acre of her farm and planted beans and maize. Within two to three and a half months she harvested beans and maize respectively.
Furaha harvested enough maize and beans to sustain her kids and herself up to the next year. At least her burden has been eased and she can use some money to take care of other needs. In addition, there is a big improvement in her health compared to the time she used to mix the mortar. Now Furaha has a job and doesn’t need to worry or move around asking for one. She had never thought that one day she would be employed on a monthly basis.
Many lives in the Garashi community have changed either directly or indirectly with the help of Word Forest.
Juliet Anyanzwa
