Catherine is now 19. Her parents separated when she was 7. She stayed with her father and was sent to the Don Bosco school in Makuyu run by the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians (FMA), basically because "we didn’t have to pay and they gave us lunch."
When she was 12, she started to get sick and this compromised her studies. Her father was always away on business and when she was 17 she got pregnant. Catherine did not even finish eighth grade. Unable to pursue her studies and having difficulty in finding a job, Catherine reluctantly gave her baby, Alvin Juma, to her mother and went to Lebanon, where she had been promised a good job as a housekeeper in an Arab family; There however, they took her passport and treated her like a slave.
Eventually, Catherine succeeded in escaping to the Kenyan Consulate, and with the help of some volunteers working in Makuyu, managed to get the money to return home. Today, thanks to the Salesians, she is about to start her own business, in a small fruit and vegetable store, which will give her stability and enable her to make a living.
Even more decisive was the action pf a Salesian on behalf of a little girl in the hospital in Nairobi. She was mere skin and bones and needed heart surgery. She was in danger of dying within a matter of days. But in the hospital, they had not even brought her to the cardiology department. The nurses asked Fr Felice Molino, a Salesian, "Father, do you know the family? They don't have any money, and nothing is done here without money. "
Fr Molino went back home and immediately sent out an appeal to all his email addresses. "I had an immediate response. People are so good. They become the long arm of Providence."
The child was operated on and recovered well. The FMA in Makuyu took care of her until she was completely recovered.
