Sama

Sama and her mother Noor had no idea why they were falling sick every few days. They live in a slum community where 90 percent of the pregnant women are anaemic, and a majority don’t have the money for basic iron supplements or nutritious food.

Sama and Noor weren’t pregnant, but they too were anaemic and too poor to afford any treatment.

Their slum community is also one where nearly half the population has borrowed money to pay for medical aid. With Sama’s family solely dependent on her father Tabrez’s income for their survival, even borrowing wasn’t an option for them.

Mother and daughter continued to fall sick often, and Sama especially was unable to sustain her education.

Sama and her mother also didn’t know about or practice much personal hygiene. Their home had no windows, the family couldn’t afford three simple meals a day, and their poverty forced them to use the public toilets far away from their home to relieve themselves.

80 people share one such toilet each day, and their slum community is notorious for a public toilet that caved in two years ago instantly killing three.

A year ago though your donations powered Vision Rescue to open a learning centre inside Sama’s slum community and welcome over 300 children like Sama into quality pre-primary education for the first time in their lives.

Your gifts provided Sama with health assessments, dental work-ups and a nutritious meal every single school day. Our community workers also began counselling Sama and her mother about the nutrition she required, and the proper practices of hygiene that would ensure her body stayed healthy and safe.

In class, Sama is known to be well-disciplined, respectful of her teacher and cooperative with her classmates. She loves the school bag, raincoat, shoes, uniform and books that you have gifted her, and she can’t wait to study hard, grow up and become a policewoman.

After a year with us, Sama is much healthier and able to attend classes regularly only because you reached out to her with love, education, healthcare and nutrition.

Today she’s finished her course with us and moved on to a madrassa in her community, but her father Tabrez continues to volunteer with us as a community champion, advocating for empowerment through education within his circle of influence.