Hello, everyone. I am here to tell my story. I am a girl like any other girl who dreams of the white dress, the knight on a horse, home, and children. My dreams are simple. It was my destiny and God’s will for all this to happen. Thank God, I am very satisfied with God’s arrangements. I worked as a teacher at an orphanage. Every time I saw a child, I get attached to them, loved them, and felt like they were my children. I used to get extremely sad when I get attached to a kid, and then they walk away from class, and I would cry for many days and become attached again and again until I thought that I would continue to be attached like this to a child that was not mine. I wanted a child of my own. No one would take him away from me. I felt that my life was empty. There was no purpose in it, there was no life in the first place. It was only one color until I thought about going to the orphanage and go for a kafala, but I knew that it would be impossible because I am not married. I thought about do kafala for a child and visit him. The important thing is I hear the word “mama.” I want to be a mother like all women. I want to breastfeed, change diapers and raise them well. Before I went to the orphanage, I read a post by Shaima, Muhannad’s mother, that she got her son while she was divorced. She was like a moment of epiphany to me. I asked her, and she answered honestly and gave me hope. After a long time of despair, I decided and was determined to fulfill my dream of becoming a mother. I contacted Youmna Dahrouj, who helped me to know and understand everything about kafala. The next step was to inform my family of my decision, and a war started between me and them; they totally refused because they didn’t know much about how and why I would go for kafala. They see me as a girl from a rural community and this is against my traditions. I was determined to make my dream come true. I dreamed about her, about my daughter, whom I decided to name her Fatima, after my mother, may God have mercy on her. I wish the rejection was from my family only, but unfortunately even the Ministry of Social Solidarity rejected me. The day of the search was the worst day in my life. I swear I was going to die. I felt that my dreams were gone. I dreamed of Fatima by my side, crying, laughing, and playing, and I did not even see her. I dreamed of her everywhere with me. I would wake up all startled, thinking that I heard her crying, but I look next to me and find no one. That search day made me devasted and made my dreams all shattered. Do you know the angel who comes to rescue you from loss? This was Rasha Makki. This was my angel who came and touched my heart. I did not know her. I wrote a post, asking about kafala, she saw the post and send me one word. I felt that she was my sister or my mother. She said to me, “I saw your post. I feel you.” That word touched my heart. Someone gets upset because of you, and you don’t know anyone to help you. It was her, an angel sent from God to me. She helped me a lot. I felt like I was flying in the sky, and I was going to see Fatima soon. The dream of my life would come true. I chose her. I swear she was the oldest person there. I had mixed feelings. I felt afraid as soon as I took her away. Can I raise and make her happy or treat her well? I talked to her and she made me laugh, and I was hesistant about having her, when she kissed me. It is as if she was asking me not to leave her. The one who was with me said, “This is your daughter. She kissed you, and she doesn’t know you.” I said, “Okay” and left. When I came out of the room, I found her calling me “Mama”. I wanted to open my heart and hide her inside it. This is my daughter. This is Fatima. This is the one who will take me to heaven. And today, after five months, she is with me, the best five months of my life. I have a daughter who calls me her mother. She hugs me when I cry. I don’t know anything else but her hug. She colored my life with the taste of joy and happiness. May God bless and protect her, and may God strengthen me to raise her well and make her the happies girl in the world.

My story with sponsorship began more than seven years ago, when Muhammad and I sponsored our only son, Mustafa. When I was young, I dreamed of having many children, but I couldn’t because I discovered that I had endometriosis, which is a chronic disease that makes pregnancy rates very low. I got married and traveled to America, changed my career from tourism, and directed my interest and studies to children, and then opened a nursery. I did not lose hope in becoming a mother and entered the cycle of artificial insemination for 20 years. I tried it 4 times. This period consumed me financially and psychologically and ended up with my divorce in 2004, so that I could begin a new chapter in my life after that. In 2012, my life changed 180 degrees after I met Muhammad al-Iraqi and we got married. Although he has two daughters from a previous marriage, I did not object at all to the idea of kafala, which I learned about from my friend’s sister by chance. He knew that my whole life was for children, and that I had never forgotten my dream of being a mother. With him, I started looking around and asking to find out everything about kafala in Egypt. It took us a whole year to finish the papers and procedures, and finally it became possible for us to do kafala a child. I was terrified and asked myself a lot, I wonder if I can be responsible? Will I be able to raise a child and play with him when I am 45 years old? Should I continue on my own and not pursue the dream of motherhood? In the end, Muhammad's encouragement and my desire to be a mother won, and we began to go around the orphanages to choose our son. At first, I was dreaming that we would have a beautiful girl who would look like me and Muhammad. Over the past years, I had been collecting girls’ clothes in the hope that God would honor me. I was looking for a girl in FACE Maadi. I thought that I would be overwhelmed the first time I saw her, but that did not happen. I saw a girl who looked like us. I decided to wait when I found out that there was a girl and a boy coming tomorrow. I decided that I would come again tomorrow to see the girl, but when I saw her, unfortunately, she appeared blonde and her eyes were blue, not like us at all. For a moment, I lost hope that I would find the child I dreamed of, but the surprise was when I looked at the boy with his eyes wide open. My heart skipped a beat, and I knew that this was my son. I kept carrying him for five hours, feeding him and changing his diapers. I was afraid someone else would take him, and I remained behind them until they changed the baby’s name instead of the girl I was settled on . When I told my husband, my family, and my friends that I had chosen a boy, no one believed me. They all knew that I was having a girl, but this is what happened. My son, Mustafa was my beautiful destiny. I wanted to live the full experience of motherhood. I started an artificial breastfeeding course. When we took Mustafa home, my life was complete. Finally, I had the one thing I ever wanted. When Mustafa entered my life, my life was complete with his presence. Even though I gained weight and my fear and anxiety increased for him and his future, I was happy with the experience, and I knew that kafala is not easy, but it is worth it. All the time looking at his face, I smile and wonder to myself, what did I do to deserve this amazing gift?. After 4 months, we traveled to America again, carrying with us the newest member of our small family. We had to go through other procedures because Mustafa’s papers are not done yet. I believe in complete honesty, and that is why I share my experience with all people in the family, at work, and on social media. That is why I created the page “Sponsor a child in your home, adoption story in Egypt” Things escalated and we have a website about all you need to know about kafala in English and Arabic too. Not only that, we also formed a non-profit organization called Yalla Kafala in California and in Egypt. People started getting aware of kafala. This is not just a story of Rasha and an ordinary page on Facebook, we became a large team of volunteers who helped with whatever they could to deliver the idea. We help more children and families live the dream of motherhood. Mustafa himself wishes that we have other children, and if I had known about kafala early on, I would have more children. That’s why people in Egypt need to have greater awareness about the issue in order to help more children, and this is what we are trying to do now through Yalla Kafala.

“The day I saw her, I and her father were so confused. We did not feel anything. We were confused and did not know what feeling we were supposed to feel, but after we walked from there, we felt that we missed her greatly and our hearts got attached to her.” I am Marwa Hafez, and I went for kafala after 21 years of marriage without children. I presented it to my husband and he initially refused, but when he learned about the issue of breastfeeding and that the presence of a girl would no longer be forbidden or haram, he agreed that we would go for kafala. We made this decision in June 2021, and we began the journey of preparing the papers and submitted them on the 4th of July, 2021. The day of submitting the papers coincided with the day of Misk’s birth, and the procedures and approvals took about nine months. I swear it was like a pregnancy period. I was suffering during these nine months because I saw my daughter when she was 3 months old. Security check took a long time. I wanted to have her right away because she was sick in the hospital. I used to travel to Minya every 15 days for nine months until I received her on the 17th of March. It was only 4 days before Mother’s Day. It was as if God was comforting my heart and her father’s with her beautiful presence. It was as if my life started again. On that day, Misk came to our place, and we were preparing a party to welcome her. My sisters and my family were all happy. A week after we received her, we held a big party for her in a large hall. We invited all our beloved friends, friends of our friends, relatives and neighbors. All of them were happy and it was a day that we still talk about to this day. Praise be to God, it has been a year since Misk got in my life, and this is the year in which I was born. Every Mother's Day, I hold you in my arms, and every day I hold you in my arms is a Mother’s Day for me. May God not deprive me of her or her presence in our lives, me and her father’s.