Hello everyone, please take a few minutes of your life to read my life story. My mother died when I was born and my biological father abandoned me.

My name is Labony Akter. I was born 1st April 1999. My life started as tough as I know possible. My biological mother died at the time of my birth and my biological father was a drug addict, So my life started with uncertainty.

My grandmother took my responsibility as my father used to do drugs and was unable to feed me. Even though I was with my grandmother I was still not getting enough food because she didn't had money for food and was sick so she couldn't do household work for money. We ( me and my grandmother) used to have food for only one time a day. I was with her when she used to beg people of our area for money to feed me and herself. She was trying to hand over me to someone else for my better future but I was rejected by my relatives every time.

Days went by but our food and money shortage never filled up. So one day when I was around 2 to 3 years old, my grandmother took me to someone's family function for food and there she met with a woman ( some sort of relative), who wanted to adopt me as she had 2 sons but no girl. She took my responsibility that same day without informing her husband or anyone to that point.

The woman who took me was somehow my grandmother's daughter. When she returned home from the function with me. Everyone was so mad at her for that decision of adopting me. Somehow she managed to convince her husband but everyone else was still angry. I got my new mother and father along with an identity.  

They gave me the name "Labony Akter", which means graceful. My new father used to do some sort of jobs and had family of 5 persons to feed. Yes not a family for adoption but that was my luck. The siblings I got both loved me so much from day one. We used to go through shortage of food around the end of every month.

In 2005, my elder brother got married and bring in his wife to our family , so at that point my father had to feed 6 people as my elder brother was doing a small business of selling sea crabs. After 2 years of marriage they had a baby and the family member increased to 7. 

After just a month of my nephew's birth my younger brother died. And after the marriage of my elder brother he cannot tolerates me , he used to beat me every chance he had. I lost my voice in the family from the year 2007. 

In the middle of 2007 my father lost his job as the company he was working with closed. So my family got into the sea of sadness. My mother came with a solution , she started working household works for rich people in the area for some money and she took me along with her. Just 4month later my grandmother (mother of my biological father) became very sick . My parents bring her in the family for treatment. Her condition was so serious that the medicine did not work on her body. One noon she died in the bed. We completed her funeral.

Enough food was still a challenge for our family, in the year 2008 I joined MCF ( Maria Cristina Foundation) just 3 years after MCF was created, because MCF was feeding kids in school along with taking care of education. Maria conceicao, a Portuguese woman was a flight crew and stopped over a flight to visit Dhaka. She saw the poverty of Dhaka kids and wanted to remove poverty because she knew the pain of poverty by herself as she belongs to a very poor family. Yet she is successful as she changed the life of 600 kids and their families along with mine. She offered education and the positivity of changes until success. She promised to offer education until grade 12 for all 600 kids. 

In the year 2014 my father started a small tea stall in our area, at that time the tea stall was the only source of income for my family. In 2017 suddenly my father died as a result my test exam was hampered because we had to go to village for the funeral.

After the death of my father , the tea stall was closed temporarily. Being a woman my mother had to run the stall to finance and manage food for the family. Running a tea stall for my mother was hard as she was old, so I started going to stall. Being a 18 years old girl, me and my mother had to listen to too many negative things.

I was going to the stall regularly but after a year my mother was fed up with the negative mentality and stopped me from going to work for the tea stall. In 2018 I was severely sick and was unable to sit for my final examination of grade 12. As a result I couldn't pass grade 12 yet but I will sit for my final examination this year.

As my grade 12 is about to complete MCF will not help me directly with my higher education.

I want to study more because education is the only way to prove my existence in my family and to create a project to help people in need. Education is the only force I can have to change my life and give back to the community.

Angles in my life are:

The woman who adopted me as a daughter and saved my life

Maria Conceicao, who helped me since 2008 with education and discovering positivity of my potential to the world.

Whatever I do I can't pay back any of their help to me. Without my mother I couldn't have lived so far and I have no one to support me if something happens to her. Without Maria Cristina Foundation I couldn't get any education and lived a slum life. I want to give back the help I got from Maria Conceicao and my mother to the community by creating an organization to help people like me ( left out for death by family ).

I got a chance to study in IPB (Instituto Politecnico De Braganca) about International business management. As I belong to an under privilege family I need your support and love . I am raising 8,000 USD for my University fees by doing push-ups, planks and also running marathons to prove my determination for my goals. Please make a donation or share this message in your networks to help me raising the university fees.

Best wishes for your health and families. 

Labony Akter.

Thank you in advance.