Lost hope to lawyer

When you give time or money to help someone, you want to know they will work as hard as you had to so you could give your gift.

That’s why meeting someone like Nyamok is so inspiring.

A refugee for 15 of her 18 years, Nyamok was only three years old when the conflict in South Sudan forced her family to flee.

That day was the last she ever saw her parents.

Nyamok finally found safety when she reached Kakuma Refugee Camp in northern Kenya, where our ALWS family supports the Reception Centre through Lutheran World Federation (LWF), along with around 13,000 children in Early Learning Centres.

Nyamok studied hard at school, but when she was 14 she fell pregnant. The community wanted the 25-year-old perpetrator arrested, but he escaped.

Alone with her child, Nyamok dropped out of school and lost hope of ever being able to finish her education.

Thankfully, the LWF Child Protection counsellors at Kakuma, supported by the ALWS family in Australia, encouraged and supported Nyamok. This encouragement, matched with lots of hard work and determination, saw Nyamok complete her Certificate of Primary Education, taking position 65 out of 4000 students! Nyamok reflects:

“…it’s not the end of life. You can still go back to school and you can make it. God has a plan for each one of us.
I can tell that one’s attitude towards education is an important factor to success.
I made it because of positive attitude and working hard to achieve in my education despite challenges.
Many people have gone through many hardships but they have accomplished in life. You too can do that.”

Nyamok dreams of being a lawyer, so she can defend the rights of girls and women, including her baby daughter Gatjiek! Given what Nyamok has already achieved, who would dare say she won’t do it?