Lilliane Ineeza is 17 and cares for her brother of 13 and her two young sisters.  Both parents died seven years ago when she was in primary three at Ecole de Remera.

Inneza’s family was well off by the standards of the area and so the children live in a decent house but without any income or support.

It’s startling to know how the young girl manages to take care of her young siblings despite her poor health and with no daily income.

Ineeza is an asthmatic girl with poor eye sight and her skin is sensitive to cold weather. Being asthmatic has caused Ineeza to experience social stigmatization; she has been rejected by her relatives and the community.

Most of her family members refused to have anything to do with her and she was forced to leave school to live with her elder cousin who was working on the Umuhuza farm in Matimba.

Ineeza was unable to pay her school fees and has thus never progressed any further with her education and has in fact remained illiterate.

Inneza’s cousin later died, leaving her with no income or support and no one to run to despite the fact that she had rich relatives.

In search for refuge, Ineeza decided to go to her late cousin’s friends at the farm to seek help and advice about what and how to take care of her siblings.

The farm produces some fruits but Ineeza’s bad eyesight made it difficult for her to work to the accuracy required by the farm manager. As a result she was forced into begging for food and was abused by the people in and around the farm village.

"I was forced to undertake domestic work and to collect firewood all day simply to get a meal,” says Ineeza. As luck would have it, Ineeza met the farm owner Richard Muzungu while doing her work, who had mercy upon her and decided to give an ear to her cry.

When Muzungu first visited Ineeza she was wearing dirty, ragged clothes and seemed to have very little hope for a better future.

Muzungu listened to Ineeza’s story and then talked to the farm manager and workers to ensure that Ineeza gets food and the other items she needed on a daily basis.

"We received donations from various sources and the health worker at the farm to help this young girl,” Ineeza recalls the words Muzungu told the workers during the first time they met.

Later Muzungu secured a place for Ineeza to study at an Orphans and Vulnerable Children’s (OVC) course in Kicukiro where she learnt life skills and was given information about her rights, how to protect herself from abuse and where to go for help in case of crisis.

This experience also proved to be a turning point for Ineeza. On return from Kicukiro, Ineeza again requested that she wanted to undertake some vocational training, so Muzungu secured a place for her at the Kimisagara Technical College, where she learnt perm culture and also took adult literacy classes.

Ineeza says that next year she will expand her course to include dress making and other related courses. She adds that ever since she attended the college, she has grown in confidence.

Ineeza sent her young siblings to live with an old woman who is her friend. 

Ineeza is happy and has arranged to stay with them during the next holidays and says that she will move there permanently after she completes her course.

Now that she has skills and more self-confidence she believes she will continue working hard so that she keeps her young siblings happy with a balanced diet.

Ineeza dreams that one day she will have her own home and a profit-making business.

Ineeza says that at times she still has a problem of food security; she relies on food donations from the community, support from external sources and collection of food from the environment.

"There are times when food is not available. When the food security of the whole community is threatened, then I don’t get food to eat until it’s available”.

"Many of the community members always express the desire to offer more help to homes that are child headed but are at times unable to because they are also short of food in their own household” says Ineeza.

The way forward

The community support and mentoring for orphans and vulnerable children (COSMO) supports over 200 child-headed families.

The chief manager of COSMO, Elie Nduwayesu ,said in a past interview that over one million euros have been ear marked to help orphans and other vulnerable children in the districts of Musanze, Muhanga, Kamonyi and Ruhango and 2,000 beneficiary children will be identified to enjoy the program.

"Kids will be grouped under caretakers and enrolled in schools for standard education and technical skills,” said Nduwayesu.

He added that the three-year project will be jointly funded by the European Union and Care International, saying that the project will enable children to feed themselves and create awareness of their rights.

Ends