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Fighting for an education and the hope of a better future.

This story is about Dilliyammal. Her family faces a lot of hardship. They live in Chennai, India. They’re very poor. Her dad makes a meager income, and instead of buying food for her and her little brother, he spends it all on alcohol. Dilliyammal’s mom cares a lot about her and her brother. She works when she can as a cleaning lady, trying to make some money to provide, but it’s never enough. They don’t have enough food on the table. They don’t even have a table. The four of them live in a tiny hut made of banana leaves. They all sleep side by side on the dirt floor. They don’t have bedrooms or living rooms or bathrooms. It’s just one room. Their floor functions as the bed, the table, the desk, and sometimes it gets covered in water. They live on the outskirts of town in a flood zone. They often have to trudge through a foot of water to get anywhere–work, grocery store, school, anywhere. They lack adequate shelter, education, food, and work. They lack the things we call basic necessities. On top of that, in their little one room house, Dilliyammal’s father physically abuses her mother.

Think about what it’s like for this family right now as they are quarantined together in their one room house. The extent of their hardship is difficult to even imagine.

We’ve been pouring out our love for this family wherever we can. We’re feeding Dilliyammal and her brother every day at our feeding center. While there, they have space to work on homework with the help of tutors. They’re getting space for fun, friendship, and mentorship. We also provided backpacks with school supplies for them so they’d have what they need for school.

We aren’t solving all their problems, but we’re stepping in to help in the ways that we can.

Last year, the family hit a crux. Dilliyammal was about to graduate high school. Which would be huge for the family. Maybe she’d be able to go on and get some more education or get a job, and maybe she’d be able to have a different life than the one she’s always known. Her mom was holding on to that hope. She wanted Dilliyammal to experience something different. But in order to finish high school she had to take exams, and in order to take exams she had to pay, but her family didn’t have enough money. Her mom was trying to save up what she had from cleaning, but she couldn’t do it. As the end of the year approached, desperation set in. Dilliyammal’s mom started to realize that Dillyammal might not be able to take her exams. She began to see her hopes fading away. If she couldn’t get Dilliyammal through her education, she’d have nothing. Dilliyammal would fall right back into the same life, stuck in the same cycle. How would the family ever be able to be free of the difficulties? It was right at that time that the Hope Venture media team was in Chennai. The team met Dilliyammal and her family and spent some time with them at their house. As they were leaving, Dilliyammal’s mom reached out and held onto our photographer’s arm, something that rarely happens. She reached out in desperation and pleaded with her. “Please,” she said, “help me help my kids.”

The Hope Venture was born from witnessing a mother serve dirty water to her kids. The Hope Venture began out of the heart of a mom wanting to help other moms help their kids. So we responded. A scholarship was provided so that Dilliyammal could take her exams and finish school.

This doesn’t fix everything, but this family has fixed their eyes on the hope of a better future, and we’re going to keep coming alongside them to help that hope become a real possibility. Dilliyammal’s going to get an education, and in the midst of such hardships, that is something to rejoice in.

The hope of a family and the strength of a daughter.

Hi. My name is Caleb. I was the project manager for The Hope Venture until last August. Normally, I write stories without revealing myself as the author, but I just couldn’t do that with this one. I feel like this story has a gift to give each of us, and I can’t share it without bringing you in to how it has personally been a gift to me.

I think there is a tendency to see the content that The Hope Venture produces (or any non-profit for that matter) as another dose of daily media consumption. You know the trends, we’re constantly consuming media. We listen to it, read it, watch it, scroll through it. We live amidst a seemingly endless barrage of content that we honestly don’t know how to deal with.

I feel that. I’ll be scrolling instagram and I’ll see a photo that is meant to elicit some sort of personal response or engagement, but I will most likely scroll on by. I sometimes find it hard to pause long enough to even read the posts of some of my closest friends. Confession time, I even struggle engaging with The Hope Venture’s posts. And I was projects manager! The problem with this is that I don’t give these stories the time to actually touch me. I don’t give them the chance to reach out and grab ahold of me. I scroll through Instagram at arms length, keeping content just out of reach, and in doing so, I miss out on the reality that these photos are reaching out to me. I miss out on the reality that these photos are not content, not media to be consumed; these photos are real people, real stories.

Normally, the stories I’ve written have come from a personal experience I have had with someone overseas. But last spring I was tasked with writing stories of people I hadn’t met personally. So for the first time, I sat where you normally sit. I sat on the other side of the globe, thousands of miles away from the people in the stories. And it made me long to somehow reach through the screen and shake their hand. It made me want to travel to Africa and India to actually meet these people. Confession time round two, I am often tempted to think that the story won’t be truly impactful if I don’t actually meet them face to face.

And then I met Kavitha.

It was a couple of days after Josh (our Creative Director at The Hope Venture) and his wife Victoria got back from India. We decided to meet up at a coffee shop and talk through some of the stories that impacted them from the trip. I was sitting across from Victoria at one of those big work tables. Laptops were out, mugs were full, and they began to tell me about the people they met. 

Victoria began to tell me about Kavitha. She gave the details: Kavitha is a 7th grader, she lives in the village of Selaiyur, she is the youngest in her family, she’s the only one going to school. She got a backpack through The Hope Venture backpack project. It felt like we were going through the motions, like the details of her life story were just facts that writers and creative directors need to sift through in order to produce relevant content so that people will donate to the backpack project. And then, catching me off guard, Victoria explained that Kavitha’s parents were born blind while simultaneously spinning her laptop around to show me a photo of Kavitha standing between her parents.

Kavitha’s gaze pierced through the screen. And there, at the big work table, Kavitha’s story reached out and grabbed me. Her eyes, a piercing look of determination. She stood facing forward with confidence and humility, holding her parents’ hands as their eyes avoid the camera. Her eyes seem to say, “I’ve got this.” 

In that moment, I felt the power of story. I realized how much more there is behind the photo, how much the story matters. In order to see that this photo is not just another dose of media for our daily consumption, we need to learn the story behind it. For I will tell you, Kavitha’s story is not asking for a double tap and a digital heart. It is asking for your hands to be open, because her story is a gift. Her story is one that reaches out and holds open hands.

Kavitha is a 7th grader who lives in poverty in a village in India. Her parents’ blindness not only inhibits them from working and providing for the family, but it also ostracizes and outcasts them. Her father recently had a heart attack and now has trouble even moving around. Her older sister gave up school so that Kavitha wouldn’t have to. She was given a backpack and school supplies. She’s given a daily meal at The Hope Venture’s feeding center. Everyone is pulling for her, doing all they can to ensure she gets an education. She’s the hope of the family, the light in their darkness. And now she looks forward at the path ahead, the path that is complex and scary and difficult. The path that is far too much for a 7th grader to have to handle. And I’m thinking, she must feel the weight. She must feel the pressure. For she walks to school with far more than the weight of her backpack on her shoulders. 

Yet Victoria tells me that Kavitha walks not as one burdened with the weight of the world. She walks with the strength not only to hold herself, but to hold her parents’ too. She’s confident, humble, and sweet. She has a big smile. Even though she’s the youngest, she’s clearly leading her family. Victoria simply said, “she’s incredible.” 

And that’s what I see when I look at this photo. I see someone who is incredible. 

She looks through the camera like she’s trying to look into my eyes. Like she’s trying to look through the lens into the eyes of everyone in the world. Like she’s trying to use her eyes, her beautiful eyes, to see. And to be seen herself. It’s a passageway into her story, the story of a girl who has never been seen. The story of a girl who does her homework in the dark because her parents don’t need a light in their hut. The story of a girl who is the youngest in her family but the only one with a chance at an education. The story of a girl who makes tea for her guests, but places the tea in her mother’s hand so she can have the dignity of hosting someone. The story of a girl who holds onto her parents hands to guide them. The story of a girl who holds onto her parents hands to be guided. The story of a girl who holds onto her parents hands for dear life because she is only a 7th grader in a world that is far too complex and far too difficult to navigate alone. And yet she looks through the camera like she’s saying, “I’ve got this.” She stands, hand in hand with a mother and father who have never seen her, with a backpack on her back and the weight of life heavy on her shoulders. And in the midst of this, she looks through the camera, across the globe, and into our eyes and says, “You’ve got this too.”

A beautiful picture of love multiplying out from Kenya’s largest slum.

Outside the sky is flooded with rosy hues of orange and red as the sun makes its nightly retreat below the horizon. Dust floats lazily through the warm dry air as the evening hubbub that stirred it up slowly dies down. You however aren’t full of warmth and you don’t feel particularly rosy. Your life here in Kibera, the largest slum in East Africa, would more accurately be described as difficult, dangerous, and hopeless, and the setting of the sun means it’s time to get inside quick or risk a run in with one of the gangs in the area. This harrowing place is made all the more difficult by the reality that many of the children who are raised here don’t have the opportunity to continue their schooling past eighth grade, making the barriers keeping them from a better life almost insurmountable. 

This is home for Abraham Ndung’u, a high school student now just a few months from graduating thanks to the student sponsorship program from The Hope Venture.

Growing up his friends were much like him, without realistic hopes of going to high school, on a trajectory towards a future of drugs and alcohol as they tried to cope with the stress of living in this place. But then Abraham met Cynci and Elijah, and he got sponsored.

He was going to be able to go to high school and the pressure that school fees were putting on his aunt, with whom he lives, was gone. Abraham met some new friends, worked hard in school, and started making decisions outside of it to put his future on a different trajectory. Some of his old friends tried to follow him down this new path while others stuck to their ways. Some of those that didn’t follow have passed away after being sucked into the mire of drug addiction, a tragic path Abraham believes he would have continued down if not for The Hope Venture. If not for his sponsorship Abraham believes he would be six feet under, but instead he’s on the verge of graduating high school and giving back to local children through a weekend program called Edmond Rice Camp. He gathers street kids to play games, learn, and explore and develop their talents, helping them to better themselves and stay out of the trouble that swallows up so many unsuspecting youths in the area.

Abraham’s life is a beautiful picture of the way acts of love can multiply, he received love from The Hope Venture and now he’s giving of himself to help others find the hope that he now has.