IRENE’S STORY (MAMA SHEDRACK)

Irene is 21 years old and has an 18 month old boy named Shedrack. Both her parents are alive but they are separated. Her father re-married and has another family, he does not support Irene’s family with anything.

Irene went to school until form four in Moshi but could not continue with further studies because her mother could not pay for her school fees. She decided to start looking for a job after dropping out of school so she could make some money and help her mother who was struggling by herself to take care of Irene and her younger sister. She got a job in Dar es Salaam but did not work there for long and went to live with an uncle.

While at her uncle’s place she met a man and they started dating and she became pregnant. She told the man about it and the man told her that he was not ready to become a father at that time.  He later changed his phone number and moved to a new place.  Irene had no way to reach him.

Irene decided to go back home to her mother. She stayed with her mother until she gave birth to her son, life with her mother was very hard because her mother worked in other people’s fields and made only about 4 dollars a day.  Some days she found work in the fields, some days she did not.

When Irene’s son was 6-months old, she realized that he was a special needs baby because he was unable to hold his head up and could not sit or crawl. That became even harder for her because she could not leave her son with anybody to go find a job.  Whenever she asked someone to watch over her son, they said it was too hard to take care of him because he could not sit up or do anything by himself.

She started looking for treatment for her son, but where ever she went she was told to take her son to physiotherapists which is very expensive.  She continued to look for jobs and finally one lady managed to find a job for her as a housekeeper in Arusha.

While working in the lady’s house, they had a visitor one day who saw her son’s condition and told her to come to Neema Village so that her son could get help at our rehab center for special needs babies

We bought Irene and her baby to Neema and now she is staying in our MAP Apartments. Her son attends our Rehab Center while Irene gets many opportunities to attend counseling sessions, sewing classes, computer classes, exercise, group therapy, English and Bible classes.  She now has Hope for a better life.

It has been a month since she came to the apartments, she is still adjusting while figuring out what business she wants to do.