VOF Week 2: Is There hope where there is no Hope

Introduction

I was born in Zimbabwe but moved on to become a Motswana in my early youth. I grew up in a very abusive environment, vitually infested by all types of abuse ranging from pschological, physical and sexual. i stayed with my stepmother and biological father from the age of 6. Maybe because of the domestic violence I was exposed to at that age i made a vow to myself that when I gre up I would become a social worker so that I could help all the girls and young women who grew up under unconducive environments like mine. i used to believe that social workers are angels sent by God to help those who neeeded assistance in one form or another. My dream was to be one of those angels and focus on assisting girls and women who could not move themselves from the domestic abuses they lived under.

Unfortunatelly for me, i never got to be the social worker angel i longed to be. Instead i found myself enrolled as a law student at university level but the dream lived on in my heart because even then my father prefered paying school fees for my brother and i would go for weeks without attending classes jus because i happened to have been born female, and as such I was of no use to anybody except as a sexual toy. Soon after I completed my law degree and pupilage I was employed as a legal officer by a Women's Human Rights Organization to set up a legal Aid and Counselling centre Project for abused Women and children. My work involved offering free counselling and legal services to survivors of domestic violence. Now my dream of being an angel sent to help women and children was beginning to be realized.

That was the first organization to offer such a service in Botswana and during those years domestic violence was viewed as the preserve of the domestic sphere and an attitude of non interference was visible in all spheres of service provisions. Then i was the only attorney doing such work and the challenges posed by the society a looked insurmountable and hence my constant question of whether there was ever going to be hope where there was none at all. today iam proud to say that because of my spadework, such projects have now become acceptable and even some of the laws which were very discriminatory found their way into the public eye through the project's advocay work. I have also continued as a human rights activist trying keep my dream of being an angel for others.

In pursuance of that dream I have taught myself the basic use of the net and have continued searching the net for an insight into other women's feelings, hopes and dreams with the goal of making life far much better for all of us women. It has been through this search that I had my first encounter with Pulse Wire. When i talk about the encounter my eyes feel up with tears because in short it embraced all my dreams, hopes and fears in one. it made me feel I had arrived home because it offers a platform not only for me to tell my story but to tell the sories of all thw women and girl children i have listened to since i started pursuing that dream at the age of 6 years.

Conclusion:
God has answered all my prayers through Pulse wire because deep down in my heart I believe that as I participate in this journey with Pulse Wire I will e able to write my own history and heal the wounds which though hidden from the public eye at a first glance, remain glaringly open and need to be treated in order to heal properly for the saying that a doctor can treat others but not himself runs true in my own history.