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Rose Athieno, a 16–year–old, dreamed of becoming a nurse and she would lit a lamp each night, in her father’s hut, to revise her books.

Hailing from a remote village of Petta Central North in Petta Sub-county in Tororo District, she used to study at Petta Community Secondary School, which is a few kilometres away from her home.

“I was a serious student and each term, I got good grades,” Athieno, who dropped out of school last year while in Senior Three due to pregnancy and now does casual jobs such as gardening to earn a living, told the Daily Monitor on Saturday.

Anthieno’s dream was shattered after she started a friendship with a youthful married man during a cultural fete for a neighbour.

In Tororo and Busia districts, when a person dies, the mourners organise funeral fundraising ceremonies, a cultural practice common in the neigbouring Kenya, to raise money to send off the deceased. The ceremony involves playing music and dancing.

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