Alonyo Kevin

Summary

Alonyo was orphaned by the fighting in South Sudan.

“I came alone like this… All of my family are dead,” she says.

She had to work to pay her own school fees and buy a uniform.

With a regular meal, she can study, heal, dream and plan for a new future.

“I have to come to school. I eat food. I’m okay… I want to become a pilot, to fly to Australia.”

Hear from Alonyo

“They’ve killed very many people and when you’re walking, you just walk where people are now dead. You move while crying, you move while carrying things. And by the way, I came alone like this. I’m the only person who is alive from our family. All of our family are dead.”

~ Alonyo

Alonyo’s story

Alonyo is a young woman who has experienced more suffering than any child should ever have to live through. Born in South Sudan, she came to Uganda as a young refugee alone.

“I’ve suffered a lot,” she says quietly. “I came here in 2016. I was still young, only five years old. There was a war that took place where we were staying. They killed very many people.”

She had to leave her home on foot in a rising tide of refugees from her community. Tragically, her own family was killed. Alonyo describes her escape through the horrors in heart-breaking terms: “When you’re walking, you just walk where people are now dead. You move while crying, you move while carrying things.”

When she arrived in Uganda, she was unaccompanied by any relative and was taken in by a woman whom she calls her stepmother.

“I came alone like this. I’m the only person who is alive from our family. All of my family are dead. The armies shot them on the way with guns,” she says. “So, I feel sorry. I feel sorry.”

Life in the refugee settlement was lonely and it took a long time for her to begin to heal from the trauma she’d been through. The violence and devastation she’d witnessed seemed permanently seared into her mind.

The opportunity to go to school was a lifeline, but it wasn’t easy for her to attend. Without support, she had to earn money to pay for her school fees and basic resources, including books and a school uniform.

“My parents are dead, but I’m staying with my stepmother. I came to school, but I had no uniform. I had to go back home from school. I go and dig in people’s gardens. Then they give me money, [and] I come and pay it to the school.”

There was another reason she loved going to school, apart from the fun and friendship of her peers – a filling, nutritious meal each day.

Your support is urgently needed to help provide Alonyo and thousands like her with a healthy meal at school.

And your gift of just $6 on Take Away Hunger Day will feed a hungry child at school, just like Alonyo, for a whole month. More than a meal, you’ll be helping to provide education and the opportunity to know God’s love!

As her body grows stronger, Alonyo is regaining the ability to study, heal, dream and plan for a new future.

“That’s the plan that I’m having… I have to come to school. I eat food. I’m okay… That’s my plan – to study. I want to become a pilot, to fly to Australia,” she says.

“When we have food at school… we play together, we bang stories together, and we share the Word of God among us.

“For those who are giving us food, I pray that God should bless them to continue giving us food for eating at school!”