Imagine, for a moment, that you are eight. You are eight and you are in a family of three children. You live with an aunt who takes care of you. She works long hours at a salon, doing women's hair. At night, sometimes, she doesn't come home. But, when that happens, she usually comes home the next morning with enough money for food that week.
Your mother died when you were very small, and you don't remember her. But your father loved you, and tried to care for you. You watched him grow sicker and, eventually, your cousin came to get you and take you to her home. While you were living there, you got word that your father died. Your aunt came to pick you up, then, and you started living with her. At six, you noticed that there was pee in your blood, and that your skin was starting to look scaly.
Imagine, for a moment, that you are Cossy Nakate. She is eight years old. She is living with her aunt who is forced to work as a prostitute in order to feed her. Her parents both died of AIDS, but not before they passed it on to her. She is already passing blood in her urine, but her blood count isn't low enough to get the free medication that foreign aid provides. Essentially, Cossy is waiting to get sicker, so that she can get help.
At Nakate, we feel that Cossy is representative of most the little girls living in Kakooge. After meeting her, we decided that we not only wanted to change her life, we wanted to change the future of every little girl in her village. Through employing their mothers, aunts and grandmothers, we are sending them to school, putting clothes on their back and providing food for them each day. Not only that, but we are teaching them that women are valuable, powerful and able to provide. We are teaching them that you don't have to prostitute yourself out to provide for your children.
This week, we'd like to ask you to donate a dollar for your daughters, for your nieces - for all the eight year old girls you know that wake up every morning without worrying where their mother was last night.
Donate a dollar for Cossy.
Shanley Knox
Nakate Project Founder
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