ChosenTM | Collins
Collins has lived with his grandmother, Sofia, since he was 1.5 years old. His mother wasn’t able to bring him up on her own as she had no employment. Four people live in this home.
Sofia is a widow with 7 children of her own. Her son, Geoffrey is a World Vision Community Development Facilitator in Mwala. World Vision helped her to pay Joffrey’s school fees. Now he’s helping to support the family.
The biggest challenges for the family are having enough money to pay for school fees. When they’re in season, Sofia sells mangoes that grow on her property. She also has some chickens and when she needs extra money she will sell a full-grown chicken.
They have access to water at a WV water kiosk, which went in 3 years ago. Before the kiosk went in, they had to walk 2.5 hours to get to a water pan. That was their water source.
Sofia usually has to build a new latrine each year because she’s not able to build it well. She can’t afford it to have it done well, causing the latrine to collapse during the rainy season.
Sofia is an evangelist. She always tells Collins that knowing God is the beginning of wisdom.
She encourages him to continue to want to know God. She prays for Collins to have wisdom and knowledge and to be a respectable person in the future.
She also prays for him to be someone who helps others, to be generous and to continue knowing God.
He’s in the top 5 of his class. He’s a hardworking child. He’s above average in school according to the teacher.
He wants to be a meteorologist when he grows up. He heard about this in school and he said he occasionally sees the weather plane fly over his home.
“I chose my sponsor because he was alone in the photo. So I thought I would be his son and he would be able to support me.” – Collins
In February, Sofia participated in the Empowered World View training from World Vision. She learned a little about how to plant to grow crops more efficiently and successfully. She also learned more about raising chickens. She’s thinking of growing grass for sale as hay. That idea came directly from the training she received.
“Actually if I knew that kind of technique before I would have very much grown economically, but it’s a start.” – Sofia
Collins' sponsor, Joel, holds his photo.
"When we went for the choose the sponsor event, I didn’t know that it was the child choosing the sponsor. But the prayer that I prayed for Collins connected Joel and Collins to have that relationship.” – Sofia on learning that Collins’ sponsor, Joel, is studying to be a pastor
"He was the right person for Collins."
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