Words without pictures Blog #7

Sometimes we can't use pictures and real names with our posts and this is one of those times.  PL came to us recently because she was in serious trouble. Her family had made her get married when she was 13. This is against our law but still happens many times. We are telling girls whenever we can about here rights and that it is illegal for their parents to make them marry at this age.  PL got pregnant with a baby very fast and her baby was delivered by Caesarian Section when she was still a little girl  of 14.  Her husband tortured her and after some time she came to us for protection and safety.  Now she is 17 and her baby is 3 years old.  PL was scared and wanted to go back to her parents and continue her schooling.We welcomed her so much and she is staying for a week while we contact her family to see what we can arrange. Now her parents are sad for what happened and want her to come home. Her father talked to me to say thank you for us taking PL in.  She wants to go back to school and Wendy didi and I talked about this. In our system there is nothing for young mothers to return to school. PL would have to go back to an ordinary school in her village with younger kids. This would be very hard and take courage. We talked about if maybe one day we could set up some adult learning classes. We would have to start small and slowly, maybe just looking at literacy for older ladies where they could learn basic literacy skills with each other and not have to be in classrooms with young kids. Our dream would be to find or create a place where these ladies could maybe even study to class 10.  We have no equivalent of TAFE or vocational training and we need this so much.We do not know if PL will go back to school. We hope so but it is a hard journey ahead of her in the village and she is still a young girl. We will help her as much as we can. She is so happy here now and knows that we are here to help her.  We hope in her village, she can be an inspiration to other young girls too.