Nakabulye Shirat is guestimated to be about 14 years old. Her birth date is unknown, because, quite frankly, when you’re born into such remote parts of Uganda as Shirat was, birthdays aren’t seen as things that are important to remember. Neither is education viewed as essential. For these reasons, when Shirat’s mother passed away after giving birth on the roadside to Shirat’s younger brother, and Shirat went to live with her aunt, Shirat was a great deal behind her peers. But that did not stop Shirat from dreaming big. Shirat wants to be a nurse so that she can help people like her mother.
The auntie immediately enrolled Shirat in their local school, a three-mile trek over several hills, Shirat tried her best, but the school was just as poor as the village she lived in and most of the teachers themselves did not study beyond elementary school. Yet she walked. Three miles each way. In rain. In equatorial sunshine. With Malaria. Or Typhoid. Often without even water to drink along the way.
Knowing she could only help one child, the auntie placed the infant brother to Shirat in an orphanage, where an American woman working there fell in love with him. During the assessment period of determining if the baby’s biological family would ever be able to, or every be interested in, caring for the baby, both Shirat and her auntie gave enthusiastic blessings to the American to adopt their infant relative, knowing that the quality of life he would have with them would be minimal and would strain the even further the quality of life of everyone else the widowed auntie was trying to support.
During the process of ensuring biological bonds and blending families, the American woman wanted to help the sister to her soon-to-be adopted son. Immediately, she knew who to ask. Jennifer Cirka had not only been a boss and mentor, but had repeatedly shown her empathy, kindness, and concern for others. No one else was asked to step in as a sponsor for not only Shirat, but a male cousin, Gideon, as well. No one else needed to be asked. Jennifer agreed almost immediately.
Thanks to Jennifer’s benevolence, both Shirat and Gideon are receiving quality education in boarding schools where all their physical, spiritual, and psychosocial needs are being met. In this, the third year of Jennifer’s sponsorship, the transformation is even more astounding. Shirt – once afraid to even smile because hope seemed so far out of reach – now laughs freely and is very affectionate and polite. Her teachers praise her dedication and that, even though she’s the oldest fourth-grader in her school, she strives confidently towards her dreams.
Thank you, Jennifer Cirka, and the entire team of Grayhound Real Estate, for giving Shirat and Gideon a chance to not only change their own lives, but the lives of their entire village as well.