MARIAMU’S STORY

Mariamu is 32-years old with two boys, the oldest is 12-years-old and the youngest is three. Mariamu was happily married and living with her husband until she gave birth to her youngest son who is handicapped. Since then, her life has turned upside down, her marriage which was once a paradise full of joy and laughter became a nightmare.

When her youngest son turned six months and was not sitting or crawling, they started going to different hospitals to seek treatment, that is when they found out from the doctors that their son is handicapped. Her husband shared the news to his family who then filled him with lies about special needs people. They told him that the child was a curse and was not from GOD, because GOD never creates people like that, so he must leave that woman. Her husband then stopped supporting her and the family, he stopped buying food or anything that his family needed. He also started mistreating his wife by beating her.  When her oldest boy tried to stop his father from beating his mother, he received beatings too.

One day Mariamu came back from a therapy centre and she walked into an empty house.  Her husband had taken everything from the house. She was left with nothing. She stayed in an empty house for two weeks but later she had to leave because she could not pay the rent and the landlord asked her to leave.

She had nowhere to go except back to her father’s house, where she stayed for a year.   Her father told her if she wanted to continue staying in his house and get support from him she should get a divorce form her husband and leave the kids with her husband because those are his kids and he should take care of them. Mariamu could not let her kids go, so she decided to leave her fathers house and she came back to Arusha and stayed with a friend for 3 weeks.  Her friend had only one room with three kids, so there were seven people staying together in a single room. Her friend did not have a permanent job and was also struggling to support all of them.

Later her friend asked her to leave because it was already too much for her, but she offered to help her find a room and help her pay one month rent so she could start over, she also gave her a mattress and a few dishes to start over.

She was told about NEEMA Village by a social worker from the organization she was taking her child to for therapy. We went to do an interview with Mariamu and realized that she was staying in a room with two months of back rent due.  She was sleeping on the floor on a mattress her friend had given her. It was hard for her to find a job because she could not find anyone to take care of her handicapped child. Her oldest son has graduated from primary school (6th grade )  but she will not have money for school fees for her son to continue going on to the 7th grade.   (School fees average about $500 per year.)

Neema Village has paid her back rent and put her into the MAP Program where she will receive money for food every month. She wants to open a business selling cosmetics.  She had worked for someone who owned a cosmetic store and has some experience so she thinks she can make a living with that business

It always amazes us how poor and down people can be and yet they still try to help one another.