Josephine's Story

Josephine is a young lady who hails from a district in central Uganda. She recently graduated with a certificate in Nursing and Midwifery. Josephine was sponsored by HFLK through the two and half years course. Her choice of course was inspired by her own health condition (she suffers from sickle cell anemia). 

Josephine grew up with her widowed mother, whose main income is from farming. And since they farmed on a small piece of land, the earning they received was not enough to cater for all the family needs, including paying school fees and Josephine’s special medical care. As a result Josephine dropped out of school after completing form 4. 

Josephine joined HFLK and got a sponsorship opportunity for vocational training. She chose to train in nursing basing on her health condition. She has sickle cell anemia and being from a financially struggling family, she faced many challenges. Her main desire was to learn more about the disease and how to care for the victims properly. 

Despite her health challenges, Josephine never wanted her condition to influence who she is and what she could achieve. And now that she has graduated, intends to showcase the fact that you can have sickle cell but also do everything else. Her main focus is to educate rural communities more about the disease because sickle cell victims are treated like people on death row. Resulting to many not getting the proper medical and nursing care that is require for their well-being. 

Josephine is grateful to HFLK for being her initial partner in the fight against ignorance about sickle cell anemia and stigma towards sickle cell victims by educating her.