For ten years Olivia and her five daughters have lived in the same dilapidated, mud hut. Daylight, and rain, comes through the straw roof.

“One night a snake fell through the roof. It landed in the middle of us trying to sleep. It was too dark to see where it went,” she motions to the huts corners. “We did not sleep at all that night.”

Life was marked with frequent bouts of illness and hunger, especially in the six years since Olivia’s husband died. “Life has been difficult,” she says. “We grow vegetables in the garden, but have to sell them for money, so many nights we go to sleep hungry. And during the rainy season, we get malaria and the flu often. When one person gets sick, everyone gets sick.”

But thanks to a community wide effort: bricks made and donated by neighbours, money for the tin roof donated by Orphans kNOw More and additional materials and supplies given by local Youth with a Mission staff, the family will soon be moving into a new brick house, complete with windows and a solid roof.

“We will sleep so well and life will be better!”