my is julienne
THIS IS MY STORY
I was too young to understand why my father didn’t want us anymore. Too young to know what it meant when he pushed my mother away and chose another woman. But I was old enough to feel the pain. Old enough to see the sorrow in my mother’s eyes as we walked away from the only home I had ever known.
I am Julienne, and This Is My Story
My name is Julienne, and my life has been shaped by heartache, struggle, and, finally, the chance to dream.
When I was just a little girl, my father made a choice that shattered our family. He chased my mother away, and with that, my world crumbled. I didn’t understand why, how could someone who was supposed to love us just turn his back and walk away? But I felt it deeply. The emptiness, the confusion, the pain of being abandoned.
Left in the care of my grandmother, I learned early that survival was all I could hope for. While other children walked to school, their backpacks filled with books and hope, I walked a different path. A path where the only thing that mattered was how to help my grandmother with the daily struggles of life. I watched my friends learn, grow, and dream while I stayed behind, trapped in a world where education seemed like a distant dream.
At 12 years old, I became a babysitter. I took care of children who had everything I wanted a home filled with love, the chance to go to school, and a future filled with possibilities. But me? I was left with nothing but the weight of responsibility and a heart full of unspoken dreams. Eventually, I moved to Kigali to join my mother, who was working as a cleaner. I thought things would get better. But nothing changed. We were still struggling to survive, still fighting for every meal. School was still out of reach, and the idea of a future seemed more like a fairy tale than a reality.
I began to believe that this was my life that dreams were for other people, not for someone like me. I had stopped hoping. I had stopped believing.
Then, a light came into my life. The Carolyn Palmer Foundation saw me.
They saw beyond the struggles I had faced, beyond the hardships that had defined my past. They saw the woman I could become, the potential I had buried deep inside, waiting for the chance to rise. And they gave me that chance.
They offered me the opportunity to study culinary arts an opportunity I never thought I would have.
The first time I stood in a kitchen, I felt something inside me stir. For the first time, I held a knife not to survive, but to create. For the first time, I felt like I mattered. I realized that my dreams were not only possible they were within reach.
Every day, I wake up with gratitude, knowing that my life is changing. I am learning, I am growing, and I am becoming someone I can be proud of.
The Carolyn Palmer Foundation didn’t just give me a skill they gave me my life back. They gave me the chance to build a future, to live a life that was no longer defined by what I had lost, but by what I was gaining.
And now, I stand here, no longer the girl who was forgotten, but a woman who is becoming everything she once dreamed of.
I thank God for this second chance. I thank the Carolyn Palmer Foundation for seeing the potential in me when I couldn’t see it in myself.
When I was just a little girl, my father made a choice that shattered our family. He chased my mother away, and with that, my world crumbled. I didn’t understand why, how could someone who was supposed to love us just turn his back and walk away? But I felt it deeply. The emptiness, the confusion, the pain of being abandoned.
Left in the care of my grandmother, I learned early that survival was all I could hope for. While other children walked to school, their backpacks filled with books and hope, I walked a different path. A path where the only thing that mattered was how to help my grandmother with the daily struggles of life. I watched my friends learn, grow, and dream while I stayed behind, trapped in a world where education seemed like a distant dream.
At 12 years old, I became a babysitter. I took care of children who had everything I wanted a home filled with love, the chance to go to school, and a future filled with possibilities. But me? I was left with nothing but the weight of responsibility and a heart full of unspoken dreams. Eventually, I moved to Kigali to join my mother, who was working as a cleaner. I thought things would get better. But nothing changed. We were still struggling to survive, still fighting for every meal. School was still out of reach, and the idea of a future seemed more like a fairy tale than a reality.
I began to believe that this was my life that dreams were for other people, not for someone like me. I had stopped hoping. I had stopped believing.
Then, a light came into my life. The Carolyn Palmer Foundation saw me.
They saw beyond the struggles I had faced, beyond the hardships that had defined my past. They saw the woman I could become, the potential I had buried deep inside, waiting for the chance to rise. And they gave me that chance.
They offered me the opportunity to study culinary arts an opportunity I never thought I would have.
The first time I stood in a kitchen, I felt something inside me stir. For the first time, I held a knife not to survive, but to create. For the first time, I felt like I mattered. I realized that my dreams were not only possible they were within reach.
Every day, I wake up with gratitude, knowing that my life is changing. I am learning, I am growing, and I am becoming someone I can be proud of.
The Carolyn Palmer Foundation didn’t just give me a skill they gave me my life back. They gave me the chance to build a future, to live a life that was no longer defined by what I had lost, but by what I was gaining.
And now, I stand here, no longer the girl who was forgotten, but a woman who is becoming everything she once dreamed of.
I thank God for this second chance. I thank the Carolyn Palmer Foundation for seeing the potential in me when I couldn’t see it in myself.
Julienne
Student at Carolyn Palmer Foundation Training Center
