Carli Huston

No Longer Alone.

Trying to make all your ends meet can be stressful. Parenting can be overwhelming. Doing it alone makes it all worse. Now imagine trying to do that as a teen girl in Uganda. This was reality for Sarah.

Sarah’s mom abandoned her when she was nine months old. Her dad has another wife and family, and she’s never gotten along with her stepmom.

In other words, Sarah has been alone and without support for most of her life. Unfortunately, this led to her getting pregnant at a young age.

Sarah spent her pregnancy at Wakisa Ministries, our partner organization that takes in and cares for pregnant teenage girls in Uganda. Wakisa does everything they can to set these girls up for success, including enrolling them in community vocational courses so the girls can learn a skill that will generate an income after their baby is born.

Wakisa helped Sarah attend a vocational course where she learned to cook, and now since her baby has been born, she’s gotten a job at a restaurant!

Sarah is able to make money, care for her baby, and dream for her future. She wants to go back to school to take advanced courses in cooking and eventually open her own restaurant, all to provide her son a better path than her own.

This is huge! Sarah went from being mostly without a support system and pregnant, to now having a community at Wakisa and a skill that can earn her an income for her and her baby. Thank you for your support of this project and impacting lives like Sarah’s!

Dreams Continued.

Imagine loving college, performing well, and wanting nothing more than to continue learning. You pore over your books, stay after to ask professors questions, and would rather have a quiet night reading than going out with friends.

This is Pooja’s story.

Now imagine that the university you attend is unable to provide second-year students like yourself a scholarship to continue your education. You go to ask your parents for help, but your mom works part-time and can’t afford to help. Your dad, though an electrician, struggles with alcoholism and is pretty absent from the family. He spends all his money on alcohol and can’t help you either. Your worst fear comes true: you have to drop out.

This is also Pooja’s story.

However, thanks to our partners in India, her story doesn’t end there.

One of our partners got to know Pooja and her situation. He advocated for her to receive a scholarship through The Hope Venture’s fund for India college students, and Pooja was able to receive the funds and got to go back to school!

Now her wildest dreams can come true: to finish school and work in the government to help improve the lives of her people.

Thanks to everyday people like you and me who choose to give, people like Pooja can continue their education and help make their communities, and even the world, a better place. It matters, thank you!

Slower, Longer, Healthier.

She wakes up early in the morning, feet hit the floor.

Rubs her eyes, stretches her arms.

She gets up and goes out for her morning walk with her friends, gabbing about what’s new.

They continue walking. One mile. Two. Three. Almost four. They’re finally here.

The cold water rushes before them, a familiar landscape. The warm sun is shining on it now. They bend down and scoop up the water…the muddy, brown, bacteria-filled water that might give them typhoid or cholera later. They fill all their jerry cans and begin the trek back to their village and use this water for all their cooking, cleaning, drinking, living.

This is Janet’s life. For 54 years.

Now, she wakes up in the morning, less early this time. Feet hit the floor. Rubs her eyes, stretches her arms.

She walks about half a mile, turns a handle, and fills her jerry cans at the well that was installed by The Hope Venture and our partners at Nasha Ministries.

The water is clean, and she hasn’t gotten sick with typhoid or cholera. Her kids come with her, and they can go multiple times a day if they need since it’s so close. 

This is Janet’s life. She’s now 62, and has more of the thing we wish we all had: time. Time to spend with her ten children. Time to spend with her husband. Time to spend with her friends.

When you give the gift of water, you’re also giving the gift of a life that can go slower, play longer, and live healthier.

A Young Man’s Call.

“If I had not gotten the scholarship, I probably would not have money. Working is not enough. It’s kind of despair. Without the scholarship I would probably have a life in crime and drugs.”

I was sitting with Anthony and his mom in their small, one-room home made of corrugated steel in Mathare, Kenya. Things were cramped, but hope seemed to be present. He was telling me of his journey through school and how he received a college scholarship from The Hope Venture.

The journey started when he had to drop out of high school because he didn’t have enough money to pay the fees. “I had to hustle for some money, assisting a carpenter and making less than $1 a day. Work was inconsistent.” Our partner, Fanuel, would stop by and visit Anthony while he was working, and eventually Fanuel helped Anthony get sponsored so he could finish high school.

But a high school education wasn’t going to be enough…life in Mathare is really hard. It’s the second-largest slum in Kenya, crime is high, and many people don’t have jobs. Anthony’s dad even roams the streets trying to find work, but he often returns empty-handed. As the first-born, Anthony felt the responsibility of not only moving out to make more physical space in their home, but he also felt the call to go out and pursue his purpose.

That purpose is to be a teacher; to get his degree, come back to Mathare, and raise up the next generation of students so they can also pursue a better life for themselves. Thanks to The Hope Venture, our donors, and our partnership with Fanuel, Anthony is able to go after that future with a college scholarship.

Chatting with him I could sense his feeling of responsibility. He himself said that without the scholarship he would probably be in a life of crime and drugs…that’s just reality in Mathare. But because people chose generosity and gave to a scholarship fund, this young man is able to move toward his purpose and improve the lives of others because of it.

Red Bow.

Mariam’s father wasn’t in the picture and her mother struggled with alcoholism. At one point, Mariam and her two younger sisters were renting a room from a landlord, but he got a bucket of hot water, filled it with maggots, and splashed it all over their room. The girls screamed and ran from the home they knew. A school uniform can’t fix that, but it can help Mariam feel a sense of belonging in a life of chaos. Her favorite part of her uniform? The red bow. Proper clothing matters…the $15 donation to provide that uniform mattered.

Hope in Limitation.

I sat on the cold tile with Sylivia and her two daughters: a 13-year-old and a nursing three-month-old. We were in Uganda on the top floor of the malnutrition clinic that The Hope Venture’s brilliant partner, Dr. Emma, had started. In the room outside rang the wails of aching and hungry children, but Sylivia remained…still. Peaceful.

Sylivia was at the clinic because her 13-year-old daughter, Shafic, had cerebral palsy, which led to her being malnourished. Sylivia said she had seen improvements in Shafic since coming to the clinic, and the staff had also educated Sylivia on how to continue feeding her kids with the produce from her own garden back home.

I was so grateful to know that the staff was not only able to help short-term with stabilizing Shafic, but also long-term by equipping Sylivia with the know-how of keeping her kids fed.

It’s people like Dr. Emma and the clinic staff who give me hope that in my limited capacity to help the world, there are people like Sylivia and Shafic who are being reached, cared for, and known by our partners.