Jaliah was living with her mother, her six siblings, and her grandmother who was gravely ill, when she remembers being chased from their one room shack. Her father had died and her mother was no longer able to pay rent. Jaliah was often hungry and spent her time digging through rubbish looking for food. Like many of the students at the school who tell us their stories, she cries as she recalls her struggles.

“I did not have anything to eat and my mother could not take care of me.”

Jaliah

“I began to pray to God to help me. I did not have anything to eat and my mother could not take care of me.”

She says her mother heard about the WCF school and reached out to Sister Clare, the school administrator to see if Jaliah could come to the school to live and study.

“This school has saved my life.”

Jaliah

“Thank you, World Children’s Fund. Now, I eat well. I sleep well. I am safe. I am learning. Everything here is beautiful. Nothing bad happens here,” she says.

She loves reading and studying physics, biology and math. Although she doesn’t know exactly what she wants to pursue as a career, she appears be a budding entrepreneur. During a recent school holiday, she took a job washing clothes. She says she is saving the small stipend of money she earned, which she can keep for herself. She hopes to buy a goat someday. She says she will name him Kevin, in honor of the WCF Mama Kevina school. “This school has saved my life,” she says.