When she was only one-year-old, Hope was abducted and given to a witch doctor who held her in his shrine for a year and a half. She was tortured and abused for rituals. Her teeth were pulled out. Her tongue was cut. Her blood was regularly drained. Hope was then put into a sack, her little body thrown into a swamp. A passer-by heard her faint cries and found her. She had malaria and was so malnourished that she had to spend weeks in hospital.

Since then, Hope has been kept safe and cared for at St Paul’s, which is a rehabilitation centre in Uganda for victims and survivors of such abuse.Hope’s future may seem dim to you. She has suffered permanent brain damage because of the regular bleeding. She can’t walk or talk, and she needs full-time care. But even through all these tragic circumstances, we know Hope recognises faces, she responds to the love and the care she is given, and she beams and expresses love back.

Hope has come to personify the work of Droplets in a Stream.

No matter how badly children have been mistreated – for months, years, or generations – care and love can always be given. And love changes everything. Hope’s smile makes you feel joy. But it also leaves you with a passion to help stop this cycle of abuse, so no other child is left with the same fate.