For more than a decade, Vaviroa lived with a growing goiter on her neck in the small village of Madirovalo, Madagascar. But the physical burden was only part of her story. She was also carrying the heartbreak of losing her only son and the loneliness that lingered. ...
In Malagasy tradition, new mothers are expected to remain in bed for weeks after giving birth. But just days after Alfredo was born, Doxie made a decision that would shape her son’s future. Despite her exhaustion and physical weakness, she wrapped her new-born in her...
“Can’t you really see me, Grandma?” After Delphine lost her sight, her three-year-old grandson often asked her the question. When they walked together, he would gently take her hand and guide her forward. At mealtimes, her daughter, Noronette, carefully placed food in...
“I’m healed from inside, not just from outside... that’s the most important thing.” Sitting after work in his red deck crew uniform, Sheku Conteh scrolls through old photos of himself. The images take him back to a chapter of his life he has never forgotten. Sheku was...
For 15 years, Francisco lived with a slow-growing tumour on the right side of his jaw. As a farmer and cattle herder from Toliara in southern Madagascar, he carried the burden of his condition in every part of daily life. Sleeping was uncomfortable. Working became...
Thirty-one-year-old Aimee's face lights up when she speaks about her son. She is a young mother with a gentle smile, but behind that smile is a pain she carried quietly for nine years, tied to the very act of becoming a mother. “It started about a month after I had...