Her family trekked three hundred miles east, to find ‘refugee’ in Bugiri.  Although Bugiri seemed more “secure,” the economic situation, coupled with past horrible experience of guerilla invasion, reigned so heavily on the family. Paulina’s dad found a job as security guard in a primary school where he was given a tiny mud hut for accommodation with his wife and seven children. With just one mattress, the couple shared it as kids settled for disposed boxes and sacks from school food store as “bed sheets.” With a leaking roof, when it rained, for this family, it poured often forcing them to find shelter in the middle of the nights in the classrooms.

Well, her family had just found a ‘home’ but the thrust to feed waited. As her dad Joseph Omaido, returned home in wee hours of the morning to hang his bow and arrow, his wife would prepare to walk miles to the butchers to find odd jobs that would earn her one dollar in ten hours. Paulina and her siblings, they too like wild donkeys in a desert, went looking for husks in rice grinding machines to bring home as food. The family’s condition attracted ridicule from society; children were scorned and labeled outcasts in the community. To Paulina’s dad, poverty in his home is not simply about not having enough money, or going without luxuries. “It’s about struggling to get through each day, never knowing how they would survive for a week.” He says. It’s about constantly making sacrifices about living in a state of worry verging on perpetual fear. His children being haunted by the prospect of being stigmatized, humiliated and bullied in society. It may seem extreme, but it is just one true example of the daily complications and humiliations that children living in poverty in Bugiri area continue to face daily.

The devastating realities of poverty in this home overcame Paulina’s older sister, thwarting her dreams of studies and married at 15 years. Paulina, now 14 years, looks back into the turbulent days and imagines perhaps she wouldn’t be any different if God’s grace had not helped her through Beyond Uganda. From overcoming hardships to a good meal and an education, the investment that Paulina’s sponsors are making in her life is slowly shaping her dream of becoming a politician. The formerly impoverished girl has an eye for the Bugiri Woman legislative assembly seat in future.  But what inspires her to dare the murky political waters that many would otherwise have dreaded. It’s her zeal to serve and be a voice to the voiceless. “I am disappointed that leaders in Uganda hardly think and plan for the next generation, the children who are the most vulnerable in society. I would like to be a famed political lobbyist for this someday” She speaks with activism.

Her promising leadership clout is already being felt among her peers. She’s the female president for BU sponsored girls. At York Academy where she goes, during the recent school elections, Paulina edged other three contenders with a landslide to clinch the coveted seat for house captain. “Given necessary support, Paulina is a promising servant leader who is going to stand for the right Christian values. I have seen her exhibit leadership among her peers at both church and school,” Says Joyce Awori, Paulina’s mentor.

That is what happens when God puts love on our heart to transform one child at a time. When they are part of a close-knit group, they feel safe and know that they are not abandoned. They enjoy life in the shadows of taller people who genuinely care about what happens to them. In the end, they begin looking past their backgrounds and dare to dream. The poor, the weak, the small and the young all receive the benefit of common concern – to dare achieve what seemed impossible.