2023-10-02 20:09:16
Nigeria
Hope became world famous as the “witch boy” – that’s how he feels today
A two-year-old boy was living on the streets of Nigeria in 2016 – until a Danish development worker discovered him. Now Hope has a family once more.
Published2. October 2023, 10:09 p.m
In 2016, development worker Anja Ringgren Lovén rescued a two-year-old boy and named him Hope. The picture went around the world at the time.
Land of Hope
The aid organization was able to locate his mother. Hope met his mother for the first time in September 2023.
Facebook/Anja Ringgren Lovén
The boy is ten years old today. His real name is Steven.
Facebook/Anja Ringgren Lovén
In 2016, the photo of a two-year-old boy from Nigeria touched the world.
The development worker Anja Ringgren Lovén gave him a new home and the name Hope.
The boy recently met his mother and learned his real name.
The picture of two-year-old Hope went around the world in 2016. The boy stood naked, sick and completely emaciated on a street in Nigeria and drank water from a bottle. The development worker Anja Ringgren Lovén from Denmark sat in front of him. Seven years later, his rescuer and her husband David Umem, who founded the aid organization “Land of Hope,” found Hope’s mother. They also learned the boy’s real name and found his father.
“I knew in my heart that one day we would find her – now we have found her!” wrote Ringgren Lovén in a Facebook post in early September. The long search also took an emotional toll on her husband. «I have known David for more than ten years and have only seen him cry once. When I picked Hope up to take him to his mother, who was waiting for him under our mango tree, I saw David cry for the second time.”
Steven is his real name
As the post says, Hope’s mom was only 15 years old when she became pregnant with him. The child’s father was the village head at the time and was 50 years old. “Unfortunately, in rural communities in Nigeria, it is very common for men to marry any young girl they want,” says Ringgren Lovén, explaining the unequal relationship. The baby was christened Steven – that’s Hope’s real name.
Why was little Hope left behind? In an interview with the “Bild” newspaper, Anja cannot give a conclusive answer. “There is the story his father tells and there is the story his mother tells.” Both said that Hope was fine. However, Hope’s mother became pregnant once more following almost a year – but the village leader claimed that he was not the father. «Hope’s mother had no choice but to take her second son to her sister in Lagos. She thought Hope was fine. “She didn’t know that he was left to die when I found him,” says Anja in an interview with “Bild”.
Communication using sign language
Anja and David tracked down the mother, whose name is Justine, in January. But it took over six months before she was ready to visit her son. “It wasn’t that she didn’t want to see him. She was afraid to go back, to believe that nothing would really happen to her.”
Because Hope is deaf, he has developed his own sign language. “So I showed a pregnant belly and said child and pointed to its mother. He understood that. Even though it took him a while to forgive her, he is proud to now know his mother and father,” says the development worker.
It is part of Anja and Daniel’s concept that all children have contact with their relatives, which is why this was also done Father found. “This is important for them. And Hope is proud to finally be able to show photos when he was visiting his father or his mother visited him. Next, Hope should meet his brother Daniel.
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