Rudo Means Love

Rudo means lovein Shona, the main language spoken in Zimbabwe.
It was also the name of a little girl who once lived in the same area where Rudos Home is now located.

Rudo was only eight years old when both her parents died of AIDS.
She was left completely alone – no siblings, no adults to care for her. No one had room. No one had the means.

She stayed in the small thatched hut her parents had left behind.
No child should have to live alone like that. But Rudo did her best to survive. She begged for food – and sometimes, if someone in the village had a little to spare, they gave her something. But most people had very little. Many were struggling themselves.

She fetched water on her own – heavy buckets from a well far away.
Day after day, she walked under the scorching sun with the bucket balanced on her head, weak from hunger and exhaustion. She was just a child, and her body grew weaker with time.

At night, she lay alone on a dirt floor. In the dark.
There are no streetlights there. No electricity. No sense of safety. Just the stillness – and the sounds of the night outside.

She endured for two years. Then she became ill.

Rudo died when she was just ten years old.