Meet Domitille
Meet Domitille
This year the girl on the cover of the Trócaire box is Domitille, a 6 year old from Rwanda. Her parents have only €1.07 a day to provide for their family of eight.
Read her story below.
Domitille has inherited her mother’s elegance. At six, she’s already learning how to balance a large jerry can full of water on her head as she walks from the well to her house.
She goes with her older sister, Violette, to fetch water for the family each day. It takes her a little longer to get home as she’s concentrating on her balance.
Domitille is a friendly, outgoing little girl who’s quick to smile. Her beautiful face graces the front of more than one million Trócaire boxes distributed throughout Ireland this Lent.
It’s a poignant reminder that there is an actual person behind the stark statistic that cloaks the scandal of world hunger.
Domitille is one of over a billion people in the world who are hungry. She knows hunger. She just doesn’t know that she’s a number in a world full of hungry people.
Her parents do, though. Triphonie and Frodouald have just over €1 per day to feed their family of eight. They often go without to feed their children.
Sometimes all they have is flour and water to make a paste for them. If times are good, they will have vegetables from their small plot of land.
“We never have enough food and we never know for sure how we’ll feed our family,” said Triphonie.
Domitille and her four sisters and brother live with their parents in Rwanda. Her parents are doing their best to give them a decent life, to educate them and to give them a childhood without worry.
Domitille helps out at home by cleaning with a big broom made of twigs. It’s a losing battle when water is so scarce. And when the family shares its kitchen area with a cow.
It’s a neighbour’s cow; its owner pays a little rent for its shelter and Triphonie gets a little milk for her children too.
Domitille says her favourite meal is rice and beans, but she rarely gets it. She usually eats cassava, a local vegetable.
Her parents have now joined a local farming coop, funded by Trócaire. They are receiving seeds, tools and agricultural training.
Triphonie has joined a women’s group where she’s learning how to read and write and to weave. By the time Domitille and her other daughters are finished school, their future will be very different.
Thanks to your support and generosity to Trócaire at Lent.
