“I’m going to get a little emotional, okay? Sorry, because my story is quite hard. I’ve known the Obras for about 20 years, and it was through them that everything began to change for me. I’m a single mother of four children — a girl, a set of twins, and another boy — and I went through a very difficult phase.

My oldest daughter started at the early childhood center at four years old, and my situation at the time was very precarious. When I had the twins, my pregnancy was high-risk and I had to stop working. After they were born, my daughter was already at the early childhood center, and the staff came to visit me at home. That’s what they did: they came to us to get to know our reality, to understand how we were doing and what we needed.

I was in a very difficult situation, sometimes there wasn’t even food at home. On one particular day, my milk had dried up, and with my children only three months old, I had almost nothing. I mixed a little milk with water and corn flour and gave it to them, because there was nothing else. I was ashamed to ask for help, I thought I had to manage on my own, but they noticed my situation anyway.

From then on, I was very warmly welcomed. My children went to the early childhood center and ate there, and often brought food home. When they left, I’d receive milk for the night, food, and constant support. There were days they’d leave with the same diaper and come back the next day the same way, because I couldn’t afford to change it.

Today, when I cry, it’s remembering what I went through, but also out of gratitude for having overcome it. They helped me with everything: they welcomed me, they supported me in the hardest moments, and above all, they helped me recognize my own worth as a person.”