"My children are starving from within"
Juliyara is twenty-two. She has three young children. And every day, she fights for them with whatever she has.
Farhan is two years old. He's Juliyara's second child, and like his older sister and younger sibling, his small body isn't growing the way it should. His weight and height have barely changed in months. His belly is swollen. He falls sick often. Juliyara watches all of this happen, and she knows exactly what's stealing her children's strength.
"My children are starving from within."
Juliyara was fifteen when her parents arranged her marriage. Her husband was eighteen. Neither of them was ready for what came next, but they had no say in it. Her parents were trying to escape poverty themselves. Marrying off a daughter was, in their minds, the way to give her a better life.
It didn't work out that way.
By the time Juliyara was sixteen, she was pregnant with her first daughter. During that pregnancy, she was diagnosed with a tumour, a physical sign of the toll motherhood was already taking on a body that hadn't finished growing. Her daughter has been sick from the day she was born. Two more children followed. All three are malnourished. All three are too small for their age.
Her husband has chronic asthma. He can't work steadily. The family lives off whatever he can earn between flare-ups, what little Juliyara's own parents can spare, and borrowed money that pulls them further into debt with every loan.
Most days, Juliyara is at the hospital with her eldest daughter, or trying to find food for her children. She is only twenty-two and already carrying so much hardship.
She reflects, with painful clarity, on the choice her parents made. They had married her off to escape their own poverty, hoping it would give her a better life. Instead, she says, it dropped her and her children into something worse.
Juliyara isn't asking to be pitied. She knows exactly what went wrong, and she knows exactly what her children need to survive. What she doesn't have is the support around her to make any of it possible. No trained health worker checking in on her babies' growth. No reliable information about feeding three malnourished children on almost nothing. No way out of the debt cycle that keeps closing in.
That's where your support makes a difference. In communities like Chapainawabganj, you're helping train and equip local health workers to monitor every child's growth. You're helping caregivers access nutrition guidance, ensuring sick babies are identified early, and supporting programmes that work with families and faith leaders to help end child marriage before another fifteen-year-old becomes a mother.
None of it can undo what happened to Juliyara. But it can change what happens to her daughter.
Juliyara and her children are part of a much bigger story unfolding in Chapainawabganj, a community where babies are missing the nutrition they need to grow, where teenagers are pulled out of school, and where clean water is hours away for too many families. Together, all of that is starting to change.
Read more about Chapainawabganj
Farhan is two years old. He's Juliyara's second child, and like his older sister and younger sibling, his small body isn't growing the way it should. His weight and height have barely changed in months. His belly is swollen. He falls sick often. Juliyara watches all of this happen, and she knows exactly what's stealing her children's strength.
"My children are starving from within."
Juliyara was fifteen when her parents arranged her marriage. Her husband was eighteen. Neither of them was ready for what came next, but they had no say in it. Her parents were trying to escape poverty themselves. Marrying off a daughter was, in their minds, the way to give her a better life.
It didn't work out that way.
By the time Juliyara was sixteen, she was pregnant with her first daughter. During that pregnancy, she was diagnosed with a tumour, a physical sign of the toll motherhood was already taking on a body that hadn't finished growing. Her daughter has been sick from the day she was born. Two more children followed. All three are malnourished. All three are too small for their age.
Her husband has chronic asthma. He can't work steadily. The family lives off whatever he can earn between flare-ups, what little Juliyara's own parents can spare, and borrowed money that pulls them further into debt with every loan.
Most days, Juliyara is at the hospital with her eldest daughter, or trying to find food for her children. She is only twenty-two and already carrying so much hardship.
She reflects, with painful clarity, on the choice her parents made. They had married her off to escape their own poverty, hoping it would give her a better life. Instead, she says, it dropped her and her children into something worse.
Juliyara isn't asking to be pitied. She knows exactly what went wrong, and she knows exactly what her children need to survive. What she doesn't have is the support around her to make any of it possible. No trained health worker checking in on her babies' growth. No reliable information about feeding three malnourished children on almost nothing. No way out of the debt cycle that keeps closing in.
That's where your support makes a difference. In communities like Chapainawabganj, you're helping train and equip local health workers to monitor every child's growth. You're helping caregivers access nutrition guidance, ensuring sick babies are identified early, and supporting programmes that work with families and faith leaders to help end child marriage before another fifteen-year-old becomes a mother.
None of it can undo what happened to Juliyara. But it can change what happens to her daughter.
Juliyara and her children are part of a much bigger story unfolding in Chapainawabganj, a community where babies are missing the nutrition they need to grow, where teenagers are pulled out of school, and where clean water is hours away for too many families. Together, all of that is starting to change.
Read more about Chapainawabganj