“And I will never worry to get food to live.”
The story of one orphan in Yemen.
In 2007 Yemen saw the volcano form Jabal al-Tair Island, the ‘Bird Mountain’ island, coming to live. Spitting firing lava into the sky illuminating in red as if a natural lighthouse the very middle point of the Red Sea, half way between Yemen’s Western coast and Eritreia. A deserted island coming alive.
In the same year a little boy, of his name Odai, was born. Odai is now a 10 years old big boy. And he is an orphan, with a story to tell — His story.
Odai was born in the firm land of peninsular Yemen. Not further than 50 kilometers from the closest point in the border with Saudi Arabia, in the North Western part of the poorest country in the Arabian Peninsula. He was born in a place where the only apparent richness is the beauty vastness of the landscape, where the land is farmed terrace upon terrace, by hand or with the help of the life-stock, as if building majestic stairways for giants to climb above the clouds and reach the skies. The name of Odai’s birth place is Washha. In the Washha District. Between the hillsides of the Washha Mountains. This mountains are part of a range that descends straight down from North, from Saudi Arabia, more or less in parallel with the Red Sea coast line in the West side of the country. But Washha itself is just a barely visible dot on any online map of Yemen, no matter how much we zoom in to see it from a satellite image. It is located about 100 kilometers in straight line on the North from the city of Hajja — that names the Hajja Governorate. From Odai’s name one could only guess that experts in ancient languages and etymology would say it could mean “rise, ascend, to appear”. As so it seemed to be Odai.
But already in 2007, by Odai´s birth year, Yemen was the place of armed rivalries. In the Eastern neighbor Saada Governorate, further into the North and further into the Saudi Arabian territory. Today, 10 years later, the situation have worsened and the civil war is now lasting for more then two and a half years. The country is deteriorating along with the destruction of its insfrastructures and services.
Odai is one of 13 brothers and sisters. He is from the larger group of the orphan siblings, the group of the males, who are 11. They have 2 sisters.
Odai’s mother died when he was in the earliest years of his life. Tragedy felt over all of them as the mother was the backbone family, providing support for them all, including for their disabled father who couldn’t work to earn a living.
The family depended therefore of charity in order to get food to survive. Hopeless and without a direction ahead, they were as lost.
One day one of his brothers heard about the a orphanage in Hajja. So he decided to bring Odai and another brother there. It was the last chance to find someone who would take care of them.
Seven months have gone after that day when they arrived at the orphanage. Since then, the city of Hajja, with its more than 53,000 inhabitants in the district named after it — Hajja City District, has been their new city also. Up in the mountains. Some 1,800 meters above sea level.
Arriving at the house, Odai and his brother found more than someone to take care of them.
They found a house with housemates somehow in similar situations as them, and with whom they would easily became fond of.
They found the Hajja House.
“I was afraid that I would suffer more as I would be away from my family. But I had no other choice.
When I arrived to the orphanage I was surprised that all orphans get the most important need which is food. All food items were available and I will never worry on how to get food to live.”
As a 10 years old boy would be expected to be arriving to a new house, Odai surely also tried to know all the corners of the building and to know all the new people he would meet, on a way to find more about his new environment and the origin of the things which were most strange to him. As he learned about what was more common on the new daily life.
“When I saw the people who were bringing food to the orphanage I was so curious to know who they were? And why would they provide all kinds of food to us? So I decided to ask them who they were, as they are not staff of the orphanage. I asked them and they replied that they came from Vision Hope International.
I felt safe and happy that there still is people of that kind, who love to help and support others. They support me and all the orphans. I felt that I’m the happiest in the world as those people support us. We don’t feel worried about food or how to get it anymore. I visit my family at Eid holidays but whenever I leave the orphanage I feel homeless and start to miss the orphanage and the other orphans.
Vision Hope International helps us to feel secure and makes us feel that hope is always there. Vision Hope really spreads hope wherever it goes. Thank you Vision Hope and I really hope you to keep supporting us”.
The Hajja House Orphanage used to get an amount of money from the government which was enough to provide food for the orphans and salaries of the orphanage employees. When the war began in 2015, the money stopped. The orphanage was then unable to provide food for the orphans. They started to look for an agency to help or at least for donors to help those children. Only about 30 orphans stayed in the orphanage — those who could get food assistance from some donors. The orphanage was about to be closed. They felt so hopeless and could do nothing to change this dramatic situation.
In 2017 Vision Hope International is supporting the Hajja House Orphanage. By providing the orphanage with all the needed food items and following up the process of food delivery.
But work between Vision Hope and the orphanage has somehow a history:
— In 2013 Vision Hope Vision delivered personal hygiene kits to the orphans;
— in 2014 the Food For Assets project was in place and furnitures, laundry machines, first aid training and for a period of 3 months food was also provided;
— In 2015 the staff from Vision Hope International - Yemen joined to support more food support to the orphans;
By the end of 2016 there was already evidence that more had to be done. From this evidence it resulted a new project — Emergency Food Support which started in February and was later prolonged until the end of December 2017, when more funding was found.
The project supervisor visited to the orphanage to make sure that orphans get miscellaneous foods as it was proposed. This helped the orphanage feel secure and encouraged those who had left to return back to the orphanage. The number of the orphans has constantly increased every month since the boys heard that Vision Hope was providing food for the orphanage. And more orphans also came to find the way to the orphanage. They are now 85 orphans, but this number is expected to increase in the near future.
This current project helped to transform in large scale the lives of the orphans as they don’t could stop worrying about how or where to get food from. they could resume their activities and go to school again.
