Aciro Pasca sits in the rented 10x10 room she calls home in the Acholi Quarter, the room she shares with her three children, as she recounts the challenges that brought her here.

Born in the north, Pasca never attended school.  Both of her parents passed away when she was still young.  Her uncle took her in.  She spent her youth looking after the family’s goats and cows.

Pasca was just 16 or 17 when she left her uncle’s home to marry.  Her and her husband lived in the north for 7 years before the war chased them from their home and they fled to the Acholi Quarter with their two young children.  Four more children followed.  They both took up work in the stone quarry, where she worked for nearly 5 years before Project Have Hope introduced her to the craft of making paper bead jewelry and a much easier way to earn money.

In 2016, her husband returned to the north with three of
their children, leaving her to support the youngest children.  With a dwindling market for paper bead
jewelry, Pasca struggles to find alternative ways to provide.  Pasca roams the Quarter and the bust streets
of Kampala, collecting plastic bottles to recycle.  She also has returned to her agricultural roots and picks greens to sell. 

Life is a struggle as she competes with many others who recycle bottles for work.  She hopes to raise enough capital to purchase vegetables or other food stuffs to sell from her home as an additional source of income.