Meet Helena

 

She is eleven years old, though she has no idea when her birthday is. She has lived in western Kenya for most of her life, but moved to Uganda when she was ten and a half.

 

Current Status: Helena is still living on the streets of Wairasa village just outside Jinja, hoping that one day she will be able to continue her education. Can you help this young girl’s dreams come true and bring some hope back into her life again? Get in contact with S.A.L.V.E. and become her sponsor, and give her a happy ending to her troubled past.

 

Background: Most of Helena’s life has been spent living in Kenya. Her father was Kenyan, though she was never told his name, and her mother came from the north of Uganda. She used to live with her mother and her paternal grandparents in western Kenya. There were not many children living in the house compared to most families – only about five – but none of them were her brothers or sisters. She doesn’t know if she has any siblings at all as she has never met her dad, and he may well have started another family elsewhere.

 

Life was hard for them there. Both her grandparents and her mother relied on digging millet for a living, and this meant that whether or not they had food to eat varied from day to day and season to season. But after many years in Kenya, Helena’s mother decided to move back to Uganda in January 2008. Helena’s grandmother had died, and she was the only one who had loved and supported her and her mother. At this time Kenya was in the grip of a devastating spate of ethnic violence, and knowing that their lives were in danger and there was nothing left for them to stay for, Helena’s mother decided to return to her homeland, carrying what few possessions she could fit in a suitcase. The insurgency made this slow and dangerous option as many others like them tried to flee the troubled land and headed towards Uganda. It was truly a long and terrifying journey for a young girl whose life had already been turned upside down.

 

Helena’s mother took her to a small village about 17km outside Jinja called Wairasa to stay with her grandmother there. However, Helena was confused. She didn’t think that this was her real grandmother, as S.A.L.V.E. later confirmed by visiting her; her ‘grandmother’ was simply a friend of the family. Together, Helena and her mother stayed there for three and a half days before her mother suddenly upped and left without a trace. Poor Helena was confused and tried to go after her, despite not knowing where to go. She left the shelter and safety of the house, deciding that she didn’t want to stay with her ‘grandmother’ because she already had so many other mouths to feed; there just wasn’t room for one more.

 

She ended up on the streets of Wairasa where she now stays with no family or friends to help her. Tragically, after talking to Helena’s ‘grandmother,’ it is strongly suspected that her mother may have left her there before going off to commit suicide. Despairing at the utter hopelessness of her life, it seems that her last act was to try to put her daughter somewhere safe.

 

Education: Helena stopped school part way through Primary Three as the school fees needed for her education ran out. She desperately wants to go back to school to complete the year and beyond. Her favourite subject was science, and in the playground Helena loved playing a Ugandan version of dodgeball which is played using a small homemade ball.

 

Life on the street: Helena was wise when she went onto the streets, as instead of heading to central Jinja she remained in the village of Wairasa. Street children in a village are treated better than those in a town, as a village is much more of a family setting so they won’t chase the children or beat them for living rough there.

 

Every night, she sleeps in the remote ramshackle buildings where the villagers distil local brew. As you can imagine this isn’t a great location for a young girl to be sleeping in, but at least it offers her some small protection against the elements as this limited shelter is marginally warmer than sleeping outside on the streets. Thankfully, in having some shelter Helena has also been protected from unwanted male attention, something that is a constant threat and terrifies every street child. But sadly, she feels she is living on borrowed time and lives in fear of  the day that a man might finally find her.

Each morning she gets up and has to fetch water for the distillery as compensation for her sleeping there each night. After she has lugged the heavy water for them she divides her day between helping wash utensils in the village and playing with the local children. She is lucky because in the village they will normally give her some food in exchange for her help washing, so she doesn’t have to struggle as much as the street children in town to find something to eat. In the evening she washes containers for the village in exchange for her dinner.
Then she heads home to the dilapidated brewery to carry water once more before she goes to sleep.

 

The worst thing about life on the street: For Helena the worst thing about her life on the streets is the abuse she gets from the other children in the village. She has no-one there to care for her or to stick up for her so she sometimes gets involved in very serious physical fights. The other children like to abuse her because she is not at school whilst some of them are, and this particularly stings her as what she wants above all else is to continue her education and to make for herself a better future.

 

Future dreams: Helena liked being at school so much that she never wants to leave it. She dreams one day of becoming a primary school teacher, helping young children like herself to excel in their studies.