Meet Shadia Nyachwo – By Dennis Wandera

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Shadia Nyachwo’s Story

Beyond Uganda plays a major role in helping children in the Bugiri area in Uganda to cope with their physical and spiritual poverty. Not only does it strengthen children, but also teaches the tender minds how to stay happy inspite of hardships. Such is the story of Shadia Nyachwo, one of the kids under BU’s “Not Forgotten” program. Otherwise described as ‘quiet with a reserved demeanor’ by her grand mum, Shadia comes as a little girl who has been through the funnel of life’s hardest moments. She lost her dad at six months under mysterious circumstances, she lived with her mum until she was three years before being abandoned on the streets. Shadia later found ‘refugee’ under a muslim family that introduced her to the religion. Life’s hardships continued to crush her little spirit until someone tipped her grand mum who mounted a search for her abandoned granddaughter and brought her to her house where she was introduced to a church.

The seven year old speaks of her life as full of agony, “It disturbs me to imagine that I will never see my parents, at least not here” she says amid sobs. Holding her breath with tears rolling down her cheeks clearly pointing to her past adversity, she takes a while to compose herself, as I pause our interview in several intervals. Even relocating to her granny, life wasn’t any better. They live in a tiny single room with the other four of Shadia’s cousins. The 75 year old widow says tables in her polygamous marriage turned when she lost her husband six years ago, presumably to witchcraft. (often claimed when no one has any clear cause of death) Her neighbors grabbed her land and changed titles, took her cows and left her helpless. “No body seemed to care, not even community leaders” Eseza Nyachwo says.

In the subsequent years, she lost most of her relatives. I’ve lost almost my entire clan, seen graves and been to burial ceremonies, one after another. I’m like living alone on earth with my grand kids under our self made clan, she says. Sometimes Eseza imagines life is ‘meaningless’ to her until she sees the bright smile of Shadia. “Her smile keeps my hopes alive for the next day.” Shadia and her cousins are orphaned but happy in their state. Hope is the thread to which our lives hang. Eseza still lives in worry that she might not just live long enough to see her little ones realize their dreams. She has no idea where they would end up since they live on their own. Her hope is surrendering these kids to her local church, Bugiri Baptist to take care of them in future. Its hard for Shadia to understand why she missed out on birthday presents, can’t afford a decent meal and accommodation. As fate would have it, one day, a BU staff passed at her house and saw the state they lived in. She was invited to office and registered into the program. This day marked a turning point in her life and that of her family.

“I had lost hope but now I see a sense of meaning in life” Shadia talks of how BU is transforming her life, one day at a time. With the support of her sponsor, she doesn’t have to worry about tuition. Shadia thinks of herself as highly privileged compared to her cousins. “I have a chance to eat a decent meal at BU office which my cousins can’t find anywhere. I’m disturbed that they can’t find the same opportunities like I do.” “A few months after joining the BU program, I saw life breathed in her” Shadia’s granny says. It was like the biblical dry bones coming back to life; before Shadia was sickly and malnourished out of poor feeding. How a child feels about his or her future has everything to do with what is going on in life today. It’s perhaps Shadia’s experience with adversity that has shaped her career desire to be a midwife someday. While visiting her sick grand mum in Bugiri hospital last year, Shadia watched a mother loose her child at birth; this did not go well with her conscience which sparked her dream.

“We do not know what potential somebody has, but we know there’re tones of potential in every child. A child’s life lost at birth is a potential and a future lost. No child should die, at least not at birth” Shadia speaks with an advocacy tone. She also hopes that one day she would own a car and drive her aging granny who walks miles to fend for food. There comes a time in life when generational tables turn. It may be hard to imagine as you wipe the tiny noses of that little child. But the day will come when that little daughter who now begs to snuggle in your lap at an inconvenient time will hold your welfare in her hands. Some day when you’re the one yearning for time with them, those energetic toddlers will be grownups in the corridors of power, with busy calendars. This concept seems to tally well with Shadia’s guardian. “She’s the cornerstone of our family.” She will win, not immediately but definitely. I might not live to see her smile into a graduation gown or earn her first pay cheque, but I’m sure the world will find Shadia unstoppable. Asked what she thinks of her old muslim religion and Christianity, Shadia says in the past she was only being told to bow her head and speak Arabic which she didn’t fathom, but now she relates well with God and makes meaning out of her relationship with Jesus.

To her sponsors, she believes your support will go a long way to turn the tide of her dreams around. She has been clothed, given tuition and told about Christ.