A 30 year old Fatuma of Mauta village, Namuleesa Parish, Mafubira Subcounty, Jinja district a mother of 6, approached our office this month (September 2020) seeking support after having been beaten and chased away by her drunken husband. She says her husband who is ever drunk, regularly beat her, sells whatever she produces from their family garden to drink and does not provide for her and the children.
She has been digging for people on the village to get some income but the husband takes away all the money, which he takes to drink instead of buying food for the family. And whenever he comes back home drunk, he forces Fauna into sex before their children in the one roomed house.
On this fateful day, Fatuma rejected the sex advances from the husband in broad day light before the children, he beat her almost into coma and cut her on the hand and back, she is still nursing the wounds (domestic violence). She ran away from the battering husband, but when she went to her parents, they too chased her back due to lack of food for her large family. She moved around the villages until a Good Samaritan (a teacher of a village primary school) in Mauta village offered her a temporary structure in his compound (mud and wattle) to camp for some time as she looks for an alternative accommodation.
The following day she went moving looking for help to feed children, this is how she saw our sign post along the road and decided to follow the direction up to our offices. This is how she found us and narrated this story.
After the narration of her predicament our staff took her along to visit and interact with the temporary landlord and the area Local leadership to ascertain these facts. Her greatest challenge is that she can no longer manage hard labour (working in gardens for people) which she used to do to earn a living while she was still normal. She cannot vend for herself and the children, she needs assistance to get settled somewhere, provide her with medical care, feeding, soap and clothing, treatment and school fees for children, our staff found two of the children sick too. Her plans are to settle down as a single mother, find what to do for income and raise her children, she is tired of men, she says when asked whether she would return to her husband.
WELL has now enrolled her under the skills training program, but she still needs support with start up capital for business to sustain her business.