My Story of Transformation

I am Camia. I am a 13-year-old girl. I live in Eldorado Park, Soweto, SA. I was born to a teenage mother. Her parents didn’t like my Dad, so I lived with her for a while, but she found another boyfriend and he didn’t want me around as I was from another man. My fathers mother took me in, but my Daddy was a sick man. He was using drugs and robbing homes. When I was three my Daddy went to prison for 8 years. During that time my granny had four strokes is wheelchair bound. I have been caring for her and my younger brother who is seven. I bath him, prepare food for him, if we have any, dress him and do schoolwork with him. I work braiding hair whenever I can as I need to put shoes on his feet, buy medication for my granny and get bread and milk for us so we can eat. We normally eat about four meals a week. But I’m not complaining, I’ve been blessed to be part of Growing Champions and I have them to thank for helping me paint my granny’s house, I get to play football which I love as part of the Growing Champions family and I have people there who encourage me not to use drugs, sleep with boys or become violent. The night before the Growing Champions team came to help me paint my grannies home this year, my Daddy came home drunk and had a fight with my grandfather. My Dad lost his temper and tried to set the house on fire. I sleep on the floor with my little brother in the kitchen and we had to run out the house at 2am as the fire was spreading and the house was filling with smoke. I was shaking and crying. I had to leave my little brother on the unsafe street to go and get my granny out the house as she can’t walk. My grandfather stopped the fire. And my father pulled out my clothes onto the floor to find the money I had been saving for my thirteenth birthday dress. He took it and left. Growing Champions are working hard to move me into a place of safety and a new school so I can learn and build a future. I will never forget the children I will leave behind who are living in the same circumstances. I pray every night that I will be focused and fierce to get myself educated so I can lift the next person out of fear into life.