Like all 13-year-old girls, Kurniawati loves music and fashion. But she is not like all 13-year-olds.
Orphaned at the age of one, when her father was killed in conflict, tragedy struck Kurniawati’s life again when a tsunami swallowed the island of Aceh in 2004.
Paralysed by the trauma, she was carried by her mother Siti, who was in her 50s at the time and struggled painfully onwards, with no other way to save her daughter’s life.
The entire family were sick, hungry and homeless. Kurniawati’s sister lost her husband in the tsunami, and was weak from the recent birth of their baby.
They squatted in an empty house until, in 2007, Islamic Relief provided them with their own home.
Still paralysed, Kurniawati spends her life in a wheelchair, and despite holding down two jobs, Siti would be utterly unable to support her without the orphan sponsorship she receives from Islamic Relief.
Thanks to her sponsor, Kurniawati gets the food, clothes and medical treatment she needs, and is even able to go to school – opening doors of opportunity she could not have dreamed of otherwise.
This support means more to her family than they can say.
“The money is a great help,” says Siti as she brushes her daughter’s hair soothingly. “We don’t have anyone else in the world...Islamic Relief is the only one that has helped us.”
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