Levina Achieng is an orphan. She lost both her parents at the age of 2 years. It is believed that her parents succumbed to HIV & AIDS opportunistic diseases when ARVs were still not in use. Having been orphaned at that earlier age, her aunt took this girl with her to her place of residence and has been staying with her up to date.
The aunt, a single mother of 4 children with no meaningful source of income took up the responsibility of taking care of the girl together with the other children. She has been working by washing clothes for other people for pay and running a small business selling sugarcane along the road. The income she gets could hardly sustain them and pay for school fees plus other requirements.
She began to involve the girl in the business helping her sell sugarcane. This is where the social workers came across her during their normal regular home visits and after inquiring why she was not in school during school days, decided to follow up and document her story.
The girl, through the help of HCH, got admitted to St. Clare Primary school in class one. Due to lack of basic needs and insufficient feeding, she was weak and emaciated. We enrolled her into our feeding program and she was allowed to be taking cooked food home every evening to have supper together with other children whom we had also admitted into the school.
Through our continued support and proper uptake of ARVs, she stabilized and was able to complete primary education scoring good grades in the national examination. She transited to our St. Francis of Assisi Secondary school and is currently in Form 2. We are determined to see her succeed in her Secondary school studies and be able to have a brighter future.
