My name is Josephine Adhiambo. I was born in 1989 in Kisumu. Five years later my mother died, that was in 1994. One year later my father died, that was 1995. We were left homeless. No one in the family was willing to take care of us. In 1996 my elder brother came to Nairobi to search for job; by good luck he was employed in a supermarket. He worked for few months and then called 2 of us to Nairobi. He took us to school. We lived with him happily, but that was not our luck because my brother was retrenched from work, that was 1998. This is where life started becoming difficult for us.

We were forced to move to our relatives. Imagine living with a person you don't want. I was treated as a slave. I was forced to leave school and take care of Uncle's children at the age of 9 years. I left and sought refuge somewhere. A good Samaritan took me in and lived with me very well. It only lasted for few months because the person was moving to another place. In the process of searching for a place to live, I found a pastor who was planning to start up a children's home. I shared with him my life story and he told me to wait for a month. After the month he asked me to come with my everything to the church. Then after the service I went with him to the centre.

In the children's home is where I realized my talent - that I can play football. I was playing with my fellow home-mates, then Carolina for Kibera started in 2001. I joined them. This is when I started playing football seriously because we had a coach who was training us. The pastor who took me to the children's home was against me playing football. He abused me several times but I did not stop. The day I will never forget, it was on a Saturday, we were going out for a friendly match. We gathered, then our coach called me to go with him to collect jerseys from the office. Then our pastor saw me. When we came back he abused me badly I wish to die.

When I was in form three he chased me from the centre because I can't stop playing football. I left the place and talked to my coach about it. He promised to be helping me a little bit because my cousin was jobless. It was hard even to get a piece of soap for bathing. I was bathing with water once my uniform was being washed, only on a Saturday. There was no breakfast, no lunch, only supper and even sometimes no supper. I had no mattress to sleep on, I was sleeping on my clothes, when it's raining we stand up because there was a sewage water funning through the house. In 2007 my sister died and left me with her 2 yrs old daughter. I am the one who is taking care of her and am jobless. I was working here and there at least to get her something to eat. Now she is old enough to go to school but I don't have money to take her to school and I also have a baby who is looking at me.

Football has helped me a lot. It has taken me through secondary education. I have done my form four. I am just at home because I have no funds to continue with my studies. If I found someone who can take me to a college I will be very happy because I want to study hard and get a good job and I also want to play football abroad. My dream is to study and play soccer in United States so I can help my suffering brothers and sisters. No matter what I am going through now, I know one day I will be a better person and take good care of my child and my sister's child, who I am struggling to feed now.