Widow Support
BACKGROUND
Grief is hard anywhere. But in The Gambia, when a woman loses her husband, she doesn't just lose a partner. She loses her income, her security, and any hope of a safety net. There are no state benefits to claim, no social services to call, no system to catch her. Just the bills, the children, and the weight of keeping everything together on her own.
She goes back to work, selling food on the street, taking in washing, whatever she can find, while also raising her children, managing her home, and grieving privately, because there is no time to do anything else.
Her children feel it too. Research consistently links early parental loss to depression, anxiety, poor school performance and long-term disadvantage. But in countries like The Gambia, losing a parent young is not the exception. It is startlingly common.
We work with widowed mothers to help them rebuild. Not through handouts, but through practical, lasting support. A small business to generate real income. Skills training with the capital to put it to use. And care and education for the children, so they don't pay the price for something that was never their fault.
That is what we are here to address.
One family's story
She is raising five children alone. They range in age from four to twenty. Her oldest son, who is twenty, has epilepsy and has never been able to work. Her thirteen-year-old daughter gave up school to stay home and look after the three youngest, because there was simply no other way.
Their mother leaves early and comes home late, selling food on the streets to keep the family fed. It is relentless, and it is barely enough.
We are changing that, piece by piece.
We've already found her oldest son a role at Orchard House, overseeing the farm. It gives him an income. More than that, it gives him purpose, something that had been missing for a long time.
We're now arranging care for the three youngest children so that their thirteen-year-old sister can go back to school. She should be studying, laughing with friends, figuring out who she wants to be. She deserves a childhood, and we intend to give her one back.
And for their mother, we're working on finding her stable employment and income support, so that she doesn't have to choose, every single day, between feeding her family and keeping herself standing.
