Priyanka's Story 

Priyanka

When Priyanka was about 15, nobody really knows her age, she was married off to a man she didn’t know and only later found out that he already had a wife and did not really care to have another one. So, she was in an out of his home, back and forth between her parents and husband. 

Then her parents died, first her mother, then her father. At this time, she became pregnant and gave birth to a tiny little boy who died at the age of three months. She hadn't had enough milk to feed him properly and started to give him cow’s milk.  But, it was too late for the little one. 

Anu's Story 

'Raising a daughter is like watering your neighbour's garden': a saying which can be heard over and over in India.

Girls simply aren't worth the money spent on them: they marry into someone else's family and never bring in income for their own, never care for their parents in old age.

In light of this, Anu considers herself "a lucky one". Her mother placed her in an orphanage, rather than simply aborting or abandoning her at birth. Her status in Indian society, however, was automatically one of deep disadvantage: orphans are seen as a curse, an object of shame, and to be a female orphan, even more so.

Growing up anonymous, amongst 800 abandoned others, Anu was only 8 years old when she first felt God speak to her about caring for orphaned and abandoned girls. Transferred to a Hindu orphanage at 15, she quickly took on the role of caring for the younger girls and was given unofficial charge of them. Later, as a newly married woman, Anu started to apply for the custody of 2 baby girls who had been left with her. Her supportive husband, who had married this orphan despite the protests of his family, worked with her in starting 'Vanitashray', made up of the 2 Hindi words vanita (woman) and ashray (shelter), under the umbrella of YWAM India.