Noella gave birth to her precious baby boy, Alicadia on the 29th of June 2016. She was determined to be a good mother, having been abandoned at a young age by her own mother. She was living alone with her father but when he died she found herself alone and vulnerable with no security and ended up in prostitution to try to make ends meet. At that time she became infected with HIV/AIDS and with no medical insurance became very unwell. She describes her life as “very difficult” and “with no hope for a future” at that time. She would sleep anywhere she could find, struggling for food to eat. Despite all the difficulties though, she poured love into her little baby’s life and dedicated herself to loving him and caring for him with all her might.
A clear turning point came when she got to know Comfort Babies. Besides receiving support for health insurance, food, accommodation and later, education for her child, she has been focussing recently on vocational training skills and has been learning to sew. In the video below she proudly shows off some of the clothes she has been making. She is a master of the sewing needle and says, “I can sew any type of clothes!”
Noella recently wrote to her sponsors, saying, “I have been concentrating on vocational training. I am learning sewing skills at the Vocational Training Centre and I have been getting a lot of understanding about life skills. To survive in this world I need life skills and this year I have been learning about how to pray and how to live in society better than before. I am getting on well with my friends. Before I didn’t believe that I could live the life I am living today. I was hopeless but today I can think about the future and I concentrate on what will help me to achieve my goals. I used to just live for one day at a time but now I can think about the future.”
She goes on to say, “My son has been doing well at school. He works hard and I am trying hard to give him a lot of love. He recently graduated from nursery to go to Primary 1. He is healthy and doing well [..]
I am not yet ready or able to graduate from the project. I am still in need of things and the project is the only family I have at the moment. But when I think about independent living, from learning my sewing skills I am able to make clothes to wear. I have made the skirt I am wearing just now. In the future I hope to be able to support myself by sewing and making clothes to sell to others […]
Even though I have been helped so much, I want to reach a level in my life when I can support myself and be independent, just as others in the project have done.”
Noella and Alicadia’s lives have been changed through sponsorship, through the hard work, dedication and love of our amazing partners at Comfort Rwanda, by the transforming love of God in her life, and by her own hard work and determination to provide a good life for herself and her son. She finishes off her letter saying:
“I think I have been healed emotionally because at the time I first attended the programme I was really sad and hopeless about my past. Now I am committed to keep going, forget the negative past I have experienced and look to the future.”
Check out the video below to hear the rest of Noella’s story as she talks with Comfort Rwanda’s Chantal
The Comfort Transformation Centre (CTC) is currently being built and is to be a hub for many of the amazing Comfort Rwanda projects and will also provide accommodation for up to 80 ex-street children and the most vulnerable mums and babies from the Comfort Babies projects. Please help transform futures together with mums like Noella, and donate towards the Comfort Transformation Centre, making hope for the future a reality.