Amina Abdul Shaikh is four years old and has been abducted twice in her short life. The first time was when she was just four months old. Her abductor left her alive beside a garbage dump where she was found a few days later and handed over to the police. Amina’s mother Salma was contacted immediately as she had logged a complaint earlier. However, Salma was so disturbed by Amina’s abduction, and the death of her husband just a few months ago, that she wasn’t able to claim Amina from the police.

So for the first two and a half years of her life, Amina lived in a foster care home, never knowing the love of her biological family. In this time, Salma had been treated for mental trauma, remarried again, and with her second husband Abdul Shaikh, she began the process of bringing Amina home. It was an uphill task, because she was accused by the authorities of abandoning Amina in the first place. It was Abdul who convinced them of Salma’s innocence.
Today, Abdul works as a hawker, selling items in local trains, and Salma is a homemaker. Amina has spent the last two years of her life at home, and she’s been joined by two younger siblings – Amin, aged 3 and Aman, 14 months.
Amina was wandering through the slum community in Kalwa, when our community workers spotted her. That’s when you stepped in, and gifted her an education. Amina began school in our bridging classes, and now studies in our junior kindergarten class. Her parents are regulars at our medical camps and community meetings. The family has even changed their homemaking and personal hygiene practices for the better in response to counselling from our social workers.

Last year, the Kalwa community was wrecked by floodwaters in the monsoon. Homes were washed away, and entire families lost all their possessions to the rains. Amina’s family was among those who were hit hard. With your help and precious gifts of utensils, food grains and clothes the family was helped back up to normalcy.

Just two months ago though, Amina was out walking with her brother Amin in the community’s streets when she was abducted again. Her brother immediately alerted the family; Amina was rescued and her abductor was handed over to the police. Salma was deeply shaken by this incident and is being counselled to help recover. Amina is back in school, and her little brother Amin too has joined our nursery classes. If not for Vision Rescue’s presence in the community to reach out with immediate help, we wonder what would have happened to Amina. Thank you for helping us change the course of her life story.

Thank you also for repeatedly stepping in to meet the needs of little Amina’s family ever since they joined our Vision Rescue community of beneficiaries. Your faithfulness has brought love and joy to them despite their difficult circumstances.