Life in Adami Tulu, Ethiopia, is characterized by poverty, malnutrition, and a constant insecurity of how and when the next meal will come-burdens no young child should ever have to bear.

However, this is the life for a beautiful 8-year-old girl named Itsub. Among these conditions, Itsub can neither look to her mother for comfort nor run to her father for protection and strength.

Itsub's mother left her behind by fleeing the country in search of a different life. Her father also abandoned her without any support for the care of his daughter. Orphaned, Itsub was left in the hands of her elderly grandmother. At an old age, Itsub's grandmother does not have the physical strength or resources to fully provide for Itsub and her four siblings.

Yet for the past two years, Itsub has been given the life altering opportunity that was previously unthinkable - consistent meals and an education. For what many in the United States view as an assumed part of life, attending school and having a consistent source of nutritious meals has given Itsub the essential foundation to build a new life. She loves attending school and has done exceedingly well for the past two years at Adami Tulu School. Itsub's smile reached from ear to ear during registration for the next school year as she anxiously looks forward to its beginning.

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Meseret, a 12-year old girl living in the village of Bochessa, has responsibilities far above the normal for her age: she is tasked with raising her younger siblings. Meseret’s mother died and her father married another woman, who in the role of "wicked stepmother" kicked all the kids out of the house. There were five girls and two boys, with Meseret being the oldest child. Subsequently, the father gave away one boy to another family a significant distance away.

This left Meseret with the responsibility of caring for her four sisters and one remaining brother. She doesn’t get to play and socialize as many 12-year-old girls do, as all her time has to be spent caring for her "family."

Meseret is a smart business woman. She began buying cookies, trading them for maize (corn), and then going back to Bochessa and selling the maize for a profit. At the time Gary met her, Meseret had accumulated two quintals (200 kilograms or 440 lbs.) of maize, a veritable fortune in her village. She was stockpiling this maize in order to sell it after harvest when the price would be higher. Upon realizing her business acumen, Gary offered her a loan to expand her business.

After clarifying the terms and conditions of the loan as any good business woman would do, Meseret accepted the loan. The agreement was that each weekly market day, Meseret would pay back a portion of the loan. When Meseret failed to show up for a few weeks to pay back her loan, Gary sent one of his workers to see if he could find Meseret. He did find her, waiting at the entrance of one of the nicer hotels in Ziway. She explained that she had not clearly understood the directions to Misgana Ministries' office, so each week she waited at that hotel hoping to find someone who could tell her how to meet Gary to make payment.

Unfortunately, the “wicked stepmother” is not the only villain, and this is not a fairy tale. Meseret continued to stockpile corn in her home, but her father took most of the corn from her. She did pay off her loan, and with fears that her father would continue to steal her corn, she has started a business of weaving fish nets and selling them to the fishermen in her village.

Meseret, with her maturity and business sense, is already accomplishing great things in her life. At the age of 12, where maturity, responsibility, and difficulty to many children simply applies to school work and household chores, Meseret is raising and providing for her siblings with creativity, with maturity, and without complaint.

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