{"id":49653,"date":"2018-10-24T14:42:27","date_gmt":"2018-10-24T19:42:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wearezoe.org\/?p=49653"},"modified":"2023-08-15T22:11:16","modified_gmt":"2023-08-16T03:11:16","slug":"how-fridah-became-a-zoe-donor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/\/how-fridah-became-a-zoe-donor\/","title":{"rendered":"How Fridah Became a ZOE Donor"},"content":{"rendered":"
\u201cI believe poverty is the behaviors, values and characters you\u2019re forced into, like digging through garbage bins to find leftover food, being forced to dropout of school or not having a secure place to sleep at night. That took away my dignity. <\/span><\/i>I want others to have the dignity I didn\u2019t have<\/strong>.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \u2012 Fridah, Graduating in December 2018 (Kenya)<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Fridah vividly remembers the day she heard of her father\u2019s death in 2013. Randomly attacked by malicious thieves on his way home from work, then 17-year-old Fridah was deeply saddened by the news, along with her mother and five siblings. With the sole provider of income gone in an instant, the already struggling family was forced to turn to begging for food to survive. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe walked the streets, sifting through garbage cans in search of leftovers after community events,\u201d recalled Fridah. \u201cWe had to be careful so people wouldn\u2019t notice us and judge us.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n As the eldest child, Fridah eventually dropped out of her final year of primary school as a means of doing whatever she could to support her family. Eventually, she was hired as a nanny for an upper-class Kenyan family who agreed to pay her what is considered a fair wage for that line of work, $30 per month or $1 per day.<\/span><\/p>\n Even though she had a steady income, it wasn\u2019t enough to feed the seven mouths in her household. Each day became a disheartening quest to find a meal, which was sometimes only a sweet potato to split amongst her siblings. Other days, it was someone\u2019s trash in the garbage bins. And on the worst days, it was nothing. Fridah and her family lived this way for over three years following the death of their father. In worn, tattered clothes, feeling hungry and hopeless, Fridah was introduced to ZOE in her small village. <\/span><\/p>\n Although she has a living mother, Fridah is considered head of her household, like the majority of children in the ZOE program, due to her mother\u2019s health status and inability to provide. In January 2016, she began her journey to a better future with the Faith Akui empowerment group, and within weeks, Fridah opened a small grocery kiosk in the community marketplace. She would boil dozens of eggs at night, and sell them, along with other fruits, at her stand during the day. As her business grew, she expanded her inventory to include fresh vegetables. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Fridah began to cultivate a sense of purpose, beyond just finding a meal every day. She found strength in operating her business, serving her customers and connecting with others in Faith Akui because they, too, had faced many of the same challenges as her. For the first time since the death of her father, she didn\u2019t feel isolated from her community, like she didn\u2019t belong. Fridah began to feel the most powerful emotion typically absent in impoverished communities: hope.<\/span><\/p>\n Implementing the money management skills learned in ZOE trainings, Fridah successfully saved $200 from her grocery kiosk business in the first 18 months. She asked her working group to loan her another $200, so she could buy a plot of land to build a new house, since she and her siblings had been renting a single room to sleep in for $10\/month while Fridah saved\u2014one of many sacrifices she made for the long-term betterment of her family.<\/span><\/p>\n