By Ishimwe Pacifique

“Family gives you the roots to stand tall and strong. ”

I come from a poor family. My dad died when I was ten years old, and after one year, my mother left too. I was just me, my big brother, and my two little sisters, and we could not feed ourselves. I planned to leave school, but my big brother told me that I was the only one who could help my family in the future. Instead, he left school. And I kept studying while I was starving and my heart was broken.

We lived near the Village, and there were times when ASYV students used to come to teach us English. I dreamt about one day going there, so when ASYV staff came to recruit, I filled out an application. After finding out that I could come to the Village, the hours and days stopped moving. One day became like a month. It felt like an endless dream.

Then on September 24, I saw a miracle. I was welcomed into ASYV. I didn't want to eat anything because I was so happy. They called us one by one and gave us a new family—siblings, mother, and cousins. After that, we went to our family houses. I still felt like I was dreaming. I had never seen such a beautiful spot.

At first, it felt hard to live with so many boys I hadn’t known before, and it was also hard for me to call someone mother again. But everyday our mother called us ‘my sons,’ as if she gave birth to us, and she told us to feel free to tell her about any problem we had. We felt love.

In school, everything was in English, and that was another challenge for us. We were ashamed to speak up, but the teachers told us it was not our fault that we did not know things. We listened to them and started learning, and after classes, we had extracurricular activities that helped us to discover our potential and a science center that helped us boost our talents.

I didn’t know how the wound in me had disappeared, but I started to wake up smiling as if I was new. Through the education, healing, love, and care I got from my ASYV family, I can say that I now feel as if I have my future in my hands.