Meet Abdi

Abdi is five years old and lives with his parents in Dembi Dollo. Both him and his mother are living with HIV and take medicine to control the virus. Abdi’s father’s job as a shoe shiner pays so little that they can’t afford adequate food or to pay the rent for their small mud house.

Now a student at our school, fittingly named the Abdi Academy, Abdi and his family receive monthly packages of nutritious food to keep them healthy and able to cope with their HIV medication.

The family were enrolled on the Keeping Families Together programme to help them pay their rent and provide them with security to stay together. To help them stand on their own feet, their family was chosen to benefit from a small business grant.

This initiative provides small business grants to families and training from a micro enterprise bureau so that they can start their own businesses. Through engagement in mini-business, petty trade and rearing livestock we hope that they can begin to support themselves and become self-sufficient.

Abdi’s mother, Wedaje, has used the grant to start a business selling vegetables, providing a steady income which will in time allow them to support themselves. When we spoke to her about her new business she had already made a profit.

“There is an observable progress in our life as we also use the products for home consumption. And I am hoping more progress in the future.”

Now Wedaje brings home vegetables for Abdi and has started making a regular income things are looking brighter for this family. Abdi is still only young, but with our support he knows he can go on to do great things.