Teeno (Everline)'s Story

Nobody who loves you lets a sick child stay home.

Musa was sick. Everline told her husband. He knew what the boy needed, and he chose not to provide it. He had his reasons.

Everline's mother had been coming to their house drunk, beating Everline and beating the children. He had decided this was Everline's fault. So when Musa needed him to act, he did not. Musa died at home.

At 14, Everline had married because she was trying to escape her mother. She grew up in Narok, one of eight children, without going to school. Her mother drank. Everline will tell you she felt hated by her. Marriage was supposed to be a way out. Her mother followed her into it.

After Musa died, her brother came and took her home. Everline was back inside the same walls she had once left. She married again.

Her third child was born with a heart condition. Her second husband met that with his fists. There are women who know what it is to need help and find that the person standing closest to you is the reason you cannot get it.

Eventually, Everline's brother took her children into his home. Everline came to town and found work cleaning houses. Today, she washes clothes for police officers at a barrier station and sends her children's school fees from what she earns there.

She is almost 6 months into her year with Women's Resilience Circle. For the first time since Musa died, someone is sitting with her in it. That is where our year begins.

Not with telling a woman to be strong. Not with asking her to forget what happened. We sit with her.

She receives group and individual counseling from a mental health professional. Over the year, she will also work on resilience, financial skills and ways to build a more sustainable livelihood.

The hope is not simply that she gets through another year. It is that she can begin to rebuild her life. And that what she rebuilds can reach her children too.

This is what we mean when we say: Healing Hearts, Transforming Families.