# From Orphanhood to Building Hope

## The Success Story of Baghdad Wazah

At first, our life was stable, just like that of many families. My father lived a dignified life, providing for our needs and keeping us safe. But this peaceful life did not last long; some neighbors, coveting my father’s wealth, sought to marry him off to their daughter, even though my mother was still in her postpartum period after the birth of my youngest sister, “Shurooq.”

The news came as a shock to my mother, so she rushed to her father’s house seeking support, but she did not find the refuge she had hoped for there. From that moment on, a long journey of pain and family breakdown began.

There were five of us children; the oldest was no more than nine years old, and the youngest was an infant not yet nine months old. At an age when we were in desperate need of our parents’ affection and the warmth of a family, we found ourselves facing circumstances beyond our years and our capacity to endure.

The disputes between my father, his second wife, and her family escalated until they reached a climax on that fateful day, when they ganged up on him and beat him severely. The head injury was the most serious; it caused him to lose his mind and turned our lives upside down.

When my mother’s family saw my father’s condition, they forced him to divorce her, just as the second wife’s family forced their daughter to file for divorce as well. After those events, my father disappeared, and we haven’t heard from him since.

Our mother took us to her village to live near her family, but they refused to take us in. Not only that, but they isolated our mother from us and pressured her by every means possible until she agreed to marry a man they had chosen for her. Under the weight of coercion and suffering, she resigned herself to the situation and was forcibly married off.

After people increasingly criticized my mother’s family for leaving us without care, they sent us back to our father’s house in Sana’a, leaving us to fend for ourselves. There, my older sister became pregnant, and—and she was only nine years old—she took on the responsibility of caring for four children. She would cook for us with whatever the neighbors could spare, and she tried to be both a mother and a sister to us at the same time.

Amid that darkness, God sent us a light in the form of compassionate neighbors. Among them was a virtuous woman named “Umm Yasser,” who learned of our situation and was familiar with the Al-Rahma Foundation for Human Development. She referred some of our relatives to the foundation, and that marked the turning point in our lives.

My brothers were the first to be admitted to a care home, and then we joined the Al-Rahma Foundation for Human Development after our living and health conditions deteriorated. As soon as I entered the foundation, I felt that the doors of hope had opened before me, and that life was giving me a new chance to dream again.

At the foundation, I found care, support, and an education I never imagined I would have. My sisters and I continued our education until we graduated from high school, and God blessed me with the ability to memorize the entire Holy Quran; I then became a teacher of the Quran.

After that, I joined Al-Rahma Foundation’s Education and Supervision Department, where I gained experience and confidence and became someone who could be relied upon to carry out many tasks. I didn’t stop there; I continued my university studies in accounting until I graduated in 2018, and then I began working in the field of orphan care, to give back in some small way to every child going through the circumstances I had experienced.

I also made sure to attend numerous training courses that helped shape my character and develop my skills, transforming me from a girl weighed down by tragedy into a strong woman who believes in her ability to succeed and knows no such thing as giving up.

Those experiences changed my life, shaped my character, broadened my horizons, and transformed many of my beliefs. Today, as I write my success story, I stand with pride and gratitude—first to God Almighty, and then to the Al-Rahma Foundation for Human Development, which was by God’s grace, was instrumental in rebuilding my life, shaping my future, and giving me the opportunity to be a productive member of my community.

My story is not merely one of pain; it is a story of triumph over adversity and a message to everyone weighed down by hardship that hope never dies, and that a helping hand can shape a person’s future and transform the life of an entire family.

Today, I am happy to be one of the fruits of the Al-Rahma Foundation and a living example of what compassion can achieve when it is put into action, and of what generosity can accomplish when it becomes a mission.