Dear Email,
A small sum of money rested in Assoumpta’s hands: just enough to ease her family’s hunger for a few days — or to buy avocados she could resell at the local market.
Orphaned at a young age and a mother by her teens, Assoumpta had been living in Rwanda’s Karongi District with almost no reliable source of income. As resources thinned, so did her child’s well-being. So when a compassionate neighbor offered her a few Rwandan francs to help with groceries, it became a hard choice:
Would she spend it on food for today or invest it in the hope of a better tomorrow?
Across the border in Burundi, Sardine, a 31-year-old mother of five, faced the same question in a different form. She labored tirelessly on land that yielded barely enough to meet basic needs.
Two mothers stood at the edge of uncertainty weighing decisions that would shape their family’s futures.
