Bahati Aimee. Born June 24, 2006.
My daughter had just left the Kyangwali Refugee Camp. She was contacted by email a few days later saying that a child was born and named Aimee, after her.
My Aimee had just spent a couple of weeks in a refugee camp in Uganda and met a Congolese family who had fled war. They ended up in Uganda in a UNHCR camp, just over the border from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The woman was pregnant with her second child.
Tradition has it that a child is named after the last visitor. The parents decision, if a boy it would have been named James (a visitor in the camp) and if it was a girl the baby would be named Aimee. “Bahati” means, by luck or by chance. …well because, this was a situation of chance.
For years this child was known to us as “Baby Aimee.”
Aimee’s first year was plagued with sicknesses and disease. She had malaria three times and even had to have a blood transfusion due to a serious case of malaria. Each time we prayed and paid doctor bills.
We helped Bahati Aimee with school from age 2 up to age 10. From Primary 1 up to 2016 she was in boarding school in Uganda, about 50 miles outside of the refugee camp.
This month Bahati Aimee will be 11 years old. She is a resettled refugee now and living in Tampa, Florida in the 6th grade. Life has changed for Aimee and her family of 9, which also includes two orphans that they brought with them.
The reason that I stated in the title: “The refugee child that started everything” is because this child’s birth and name brought us closer to Kyangwali Refugee Camp, learning about malaria (to-date we have provided 80,000 mosquito nets in Uganda) and realizing the need for education for refugee children.
The story is actually much bigger than this, but we wish to say “Happy Birthday Baby Aimee!” Your life began in such a challenging way – living in a mud hut, dirt floor, no running water, malaria and struggling for food. A child could only hope to make it to age 5 years without surrendering to death by mosquito bite. BUT you made it!
Kyangwali Refugee Camp. Valentino, Christine (pregnant with Baby Aimee) and Amani Jean-Paul. Only a couple of days later, Aimee was born.
Alice holding Aimee and brother Valentino. June 2006 Kyangwali Refugee Camp, Uganda
My first visit when Aimee had just turned 1-year-old. When we left she got malaria
Aimee in 2009 when she was in nursery school in the camp.
Bahati Aimee 2016 in Kyangwali Refugee Camp
Aimee bottom right with her sisters and brother in Tampa, Florida where they have been resettled through the IOM Program. #Aimeeiswelcomehere
Think Humanity 