Peace Ruharuza

When she was just five-years-old she was scavenging for food, now Peace Ruharuza is a passionate spokeswoman for children in poverty.

Daily Struggles

Peace was born into a family of 14 children in southern Uganda, and following the separation of her parents and her father’s unemployment, she was passed between relatives and family friends.

At the age of five, whilst staying with her mother’s cousin, her home was the goat shed and her room mate the family goat. But, nothing compared to the abuse she received at the hands of the family.

She frequently got into arguments with the other children and it was after one such fight that she decided to run away. It was a 20-mile journey back home and yet she considered her chances of survival greater than if she stayed.

Instability

No sooner did she arrive, she was moved to live with another family friend. After just six months, Peace moved yet again to live with her older sister, Joy. This time it looked like her luck was changing.

For the majority of her life, Peace had been wearing discarded rags and eating scraps, so to be given a new dress, a clean shower and the opportunity to go to school by her sister was overwhelming. She beams as she remembers: “I became a child again.”

However, when Joy’s husband lost his job, the family were forced out of their home into a tiny grass-roofed shed. At night when the rain lashed down, Joy would hold a piece of corrugated iron over Peace to prevent her getting wet as she slept.

Driven and Determined

Determined that her dreams would not be washed away, she took herself off to the local Baptist church. The church, in partnership with Compassion, ran programmes to help the poorest children in the community. It was with great delight that Peace became one of these children.

The next few years, were some of the happiest of Peace’s life. Not simply because of the opportunities that were available to her, but because of the people she met.

By the age of 14, Peace was spending her lunchtimes in the local hospital befriending patients, many of whom were AIDS victims disowned by their families. “What I learnt from my project tutors was that you have to express your love through action,” says Peace.

Peace’s determination to make the very most of the opportunities available to her resulted in her securing good enough grades to attend university and became one of the top students in her class.

Bright Future

When she graduated, Peace became a Compassion child development officer. Once again she found herself in a remote impoverished community. She says: “To encourage the children I would tell them my testimony and they would say ‘Auntie, can we be like you?’ and I would say, ‘Yes. You can be even better’”.

Peace and her pastor husband Patrick moved to the UK in 2000 when Patrick took up a preaching position before going back to Uganda to set up their own foundation, working with orphaned children in Uganda.

Now, back in the UK with their two-year-old daughter Angel and a baby son, Prince, the couple continue to educate more Christians about their responsibility to the poor and introduce them to the work of Compassion.

Peace, is currently working full time for Compassion UK and speaks at countless events across the UK and Ireland, and internationally.