A Child's Story - Lucky Adongo of Uganda
POSTED ON Feb 12, 2010 / UPDATED ON Jan 27, 2011
Lucky Adongo of Uganda
Lucky Adongo has a gift for storytelling, which is obvious by the lively five-year-old’s excitement to talk to everyone. Like most girls her age, she also loves playing with her friends.
Lucky lives in COTN’s new Uganda Children’s Village in Northern Uganda. In one of the seven homes, which are clustered together, Lucky and about nine of her new sisters sleep, eat, play, do chores and tackle their school work together with their home mother. Lucky just graduated from her nursery school class and will be moving on in the next school year.
Originally from a village called Abia in northern Uganda, Lucky was abandoned to live with her grandmother by her parents, who were too frustrated and desperate to care for her themselves. She became just one of the many children who her grandmother was trying to provide for.
Lucky was the youngest of the group, which meant she got whatever was left over after the older ones had eaten—which wasn’t much. Her grandmother was concerned for the child. COTN staff became familiar with the family and eventually Lucky became part of COTN.
Lucky’s life is very different now. She no longer is the last one to eat and her needs are provided for. “Sometimes I used to sleep without food,” Lucky says. “More still, I sleep on a mattress placed on a bed. I have my bed sheets and a blanket and on Sundays I am taken to church.”
When Lucky first became part of COTN’s family, she was shy and stayed isolated—quite a difference from her talkative personality now. “My life was not good and now I like here more than my village,” she says.
Lucky’s smile is contagious and her excitement for life is sweet from someone so young. When she grows up, Lucky says she wants to be a teacher. “I like my teachers, writing and drawing pictures,” she says. Lucky also loves listening to stories, especially those from the Bible. “I like praying and Bible stories when mom is telling us,” she says. “I have learned that God is in Heaven and watches over us.”
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