WHEN PAIN BECOMES A CALLING.- DAY 4

LI still remember the dust on the road the day I promised myself, “I will come back for Manka.” She was more than a child I visited; she was a fragile flame in a dark room, her eyes carrying the silent plea of every vulnerable soul.

Two days later, she was gone.

At her burial, I stood frozen as I learned the truth: a neighbour had raped her again and again. By the time anyone discovered, her young body was already broken and infected. The smell that had clung to that little room now had a name, and it was called injustice.

Something shattered inside me. My tears were not only for Manka but for every girl, every child, every voiceless soul hidden behind walls of fear. I began to wrestle with God: “Why do the most vulnerable suffer in silence? Who will stand for them?”

That question has never left me. It became a fire in my bones; the kind of fire that turns grief into purpose, pain into a movement. The day Manka died, I must say, a part of me died too. But something else was born: an unrelenting resolve to speak, to fight, to protect, to heal.

I write this not just as a story of loss, but as a call. Because if you’re reading this, you too can be a voice. You too can be the person who notices, who acts, who refuses to let another Manka slip into silence.

This is how my journey began.

TO BE CONTINUED...