Shooting Stars

there's something better coming. You just can't give up yet. Hang in there. Hang in there, Destiny. So we're going to be okay eventually. So tell us the story. So where's a good place to start? Where were you born and what happened next? So I was born in Nigeria and I grew up with my aunties and her children. And there's a good few of us live in the house. There's probably like about 10 of us in the one house.
And there's like two rooms in that house with no doors, no windows, nothing. I wouldn't say I was born with a silver spoon inside my mouth, definitely not. But when I was born there, our life was very different. Most girls, we were always taught that our only role was to get married and have children. That's what most people around me did. Most women, that's all I've ever known. So when I was five, I remember I was introduced to the future man I was going to marry.
And he was a lot older than me. He was definitely in his teens, but I was still not even reaching my teens yet. But obviously I didn't understand the situation I was in, so I just thought, okay, whatever. I didn't even know what the word marriage even meant, so I didn't really understand what was actually going on. So every time I would come back from school, I would have to go meet him, and I would just sit there.
And all I thought was, oh, this stranger's just talking to me, and I just wouldn't think much of it. So I used to go home every night after speaking to him, and that was the chair. And I remember one day they said to me, look, you have to go to Ireland to meet your biological parents. And in my head, I was thinking, who are they talking about? Because I've always grown up never knowing who my biological parents were.
So I didn't really understand what they meant by that. All I knew was I was going somewhere else. And then they introduced me to this young girl and they told me that this girl is your sister. And this was my first time meeting her and I didn't have a clue who she was. And I was like, OK. I have a sister and I have family in Ireland. It's all very new. But I was very excited because I was like, you know, five years old, you don't really care about anything.
You're kind of excited about everything. So I was really excited to just go. And then the next day we're all packing for me to move to Ireland with my older sister. And I remember getting ready to get on the plane and I even forgot I was supposed to be getting married. I forgot all about that even for a few seconds. And I was getting ready to meet these strangers that I've never met before with a girl that I've never met before.
And I was moving to a whole new different country. When I was on the plane and I got to Ireland, I remember me and my sister were just running around the place and this man stopped us and he just shouted out my name. And I turned around and I thought, who are you? And how do you know my name? And he's just like, oh, I'm your dad. And to me, I was kind of just like, I don't know who you are because you're a stranger to me.
And that's when I met my mum, my dad, and they actually had another child, which was Beatrice, which was my younger sister. And that's when I met my whole family at the time. And that's when my journey started living in Ireland at the age of five. My goodness. Again, to this point of you didn't know what you didn't know. So you just accepted it because…

adults who were your carers were telling you that this was the situation, that you were to get married and then you were to go to Ireland and this is your sister and perhaps you didn't even realize the impact that this was going to have on you. What was it like in Ireland then? Was it happy ending? So you get there, you meet your biological parents and happy, happy, happy? What happened? So when I got there, I don't think I realised how much of my life was going to change.
And I think the very important thing that I feel like people don't understand is people will say to me, well, you're so lucky to be in Ireland compared to where you live. And I said to him, like, living in Africa, even though I didn't have a lot and I used to sleep on the floor, it's what I've always known. So to me, that was luxury because it's what I've always known. So when I came to Ireland and there was houses, there was cars and everything.
I thought to myself, oh my God, this is a completely different life. My life is about to change. But also I didn't understand how it was going to change. So when we started going there, the first few days were fine. They weren't too bad, they were normal. It obviously took me a while to get used to living with people I didn't know, and I didn't really have the people I did know around me.
But then after a few days, it just started to go downhill. So my mom was treating my older sister a lot differently than she was treating me. And I didn't really understand why she just didn't really like her. And to me, it was very odd because it's kind of like, how can a parent not like her own child? And next you know, it didn't matter what she did. She would just constantly keep getting beaten and beaten.
And it just got more severe to the stages of where she was getting stabbed. She was getting pushed down the stairs. It was just a little bit too much. So obviously, like when I seen it happening, because I was so young, I didn't understand what was happening. I just thought, oh, this must be the norm because she's doing this every day, so it must be normal. And I think it definitely did have such a big effect in me and my sister's relationship because I think to her, she thought that, well, you didn't stand up for me.
But in my head, I was thinking, I don't know what to do. I don't even know if this is normal, if it's not normal. I really just don't know what to do. And at the time, we weren't even going to school. So we were constantly in that house 24-7 of the day. And then when we did start going to school, I don't think I really understood how to interact with other people because when I was going home, all I knew was violence.
So when I was in school and kids were just always happy, always talking about how much they really love their parents and all that kind of stuff, I was just sitting there like, so you don't get beaten at home? And I just thought it was so weird. Did you say that to them? Did you say that out loud, like, oh, so you don't get beaten at home? Or were you just kind of saying that in your head?
No, I used to ask my friends at school that all the time. It's like, so your parents don't beat you at home, but obviously five-year-old kids don't understand what you mean by that. So they're like, what do you mean? So they didn't really understand what I mentioned. I kept asking them that question. And then when they come into school with lunch, I'm like, your parents give you chocolate, your parents give you lunch.
You're not afraid to dirty your uniform when you get home. When you go swimming after school, that's the norm to you. And I used to find you like the strangest thing ever. To them, they probably thought, this girl is so weird. She asked me the weirdest questions. But to me, I just didn't understand what that felt like. That's why I constantly kept asking those questions. When I used to go home at night and I used to watch my sister constantly get beaten, not getting fed.

I think that it had a bigger toll on me than I was letting on, and I didn't realize how much it was going to impact me when I got a lot older, seeing all of that at such a young age. So obviously when my sister kept on being beaten, my mom just really did not like her. I remember, I think it became a stage of where, I don't know if somebody reported us because it probably found a bruise on Precious or something.
A social worker actually did come to our house when we were younger. And I remember our parents trained us so well. I remember that whole day. They bought us pianos, so we'd be really happy that day. And they're like, remember what to say, remember what not to say. So when the social worker came in, I remember we barely spoke, like we barely said two words. We literally knew what to say, when to say it, and the way to behave.
So then she just left because she thought, well, they seem fine. They seem happy. And then after that, it got to the stage of where it started off with the beatings to when they weren't even there at all. We would be in the house by ourselves for hours on end, like hours. It would even go maybe the whole day when nobody in that house and we would have to like cook for ourselves and obviously at five we can't cook.
So the only thing that we would have is probably cereal for the whole day. And that's literally what we would eat for the whole day. And then after a while, we actually did end up moving to a different house in Tramore and it got worse. when we moved into the house, the beating just got even more severe than before. And what happened was it went from us being beaten to our parents not being there, to us having to start working.
So basically what happened was we would start taking care of our younger siblings, basically doing our parents' job for them. We would clean the house constantly. My mom would buy clothes for her shop in Africa. and we will sort all of them out. We would actually stay awake until 4 a.m. in the nighttime, get up at 7 a.m., dress the rest of the children up, make everybody else's lunch and go to school and do the exact same thing the next day, constantly.
Do you have any thoughts about what could possibly have been going on in your parents' minds for this to happen? Did they want you to come over from Nigeria? Like, I'm trying to understand a second here, if I can.

next door neighbour's house because your houses were close together and there was a girl in there who was a similar age to you and you would see her getting up in the morning and her having her quote unquote normal life and one day you saw her and it led you to a different decision. What happened there? Do you remember? Yeah, so what happened was I saw this neighbour and yeah we were very similar ages and I just used to always watch her and I think this is because I was very envious of how happy she was because she was always very happy and she was just always allowed to go outside and play and there's something I always wanted to do so I used to just always watch her every single night or like during the day whenever I had free time and there's one pacific night she was getting ready to go to school and we were both doing the exact same thing we were both getting ready to go to school And she was getting up to get ready to go to school.
She was getting dressed, getting ready to go to school. She went downstairs, got her breakfast. And next you know, her dad, I think it was actually her stepdad, actually came into the room and you could see that he was hugging her. They were packing her lunch and she just looked so happy. And she just looked like she had nothing on her mind. And I remember the feeling of wanting to feel like that, of wanting to feel that normal, to be excited, to be awake. and wanting to get up in the morning and going downstairs and knowing that somebody was there to greet you, to actually be excited to see you.
And I just remember just being so envious of that whole experience that she had, even though to some people that isn't a big deal, it was such a big deal to me. And I remember I actually went to go sit in the toilet and I remember just kept thinking about it and I was like, I have to do something to change my life because if I don't, I might not make it to my teens with the way everything is going on in this house.
I'm just not going to make it to my teens. And I just remember sitting there thinking like, I just have to do something. I have to say something. Even if I say something and nothing happens, I have to at least try because right now I'm not saying anything so nobody can help me. So I have to say something. And that's when I went into school and I told my friends. So you were 11 then, weren't you?
So you're a 11 year old girl and you've had this life where you've thought it was normal. You've been questioning it, but it sounds like nobody told you it wasn't normal. So you keep going, but you have this new perspective because you see your neighbour and you see how things could be. You see how things should be. And by the way, it's really hard. I want to interview you sometimes without crying.
Like, I can feel it kind of welling up because it's so, it's so horrible that you had to go through this, but it's so magnificent that you've come through this so strongly. And I always think to myself, always, every time, it's got to be the fourth or fifth time I've interviewed you. I always think, my God, she's at this age now, and she's achieved all of this, and I'm double your age.
By the time you get to my age, you're going to be running the country or something, for sure. This is so brilliant. Oh my God, you're one in a million. And I so want other young girls, women, everybody to hear your story and think about this really seriously for themselves, for kids, for schools, because there's so much here that I think that a lot of us are just completely and utterly oblivious to. and this was happening this could be happening next door to me right now and you know we don't we don't know it's happening I don't think that we think it's even possible that this could be happening because it's so horrible even to think about you as an 11 year old staying up all night you're in this room there's nothing in it you don't have any nice things in your bedroom and I think of my daughter's bedroom and all the stuff she's got you know and someone could be looking across the street into her thinking

You know, I woke her up this morning, morning, Grace, wake up, darling. And you know, what do I get? A grunt. But that's normal. That's what you expect. So you're 11 years old. You figure out finally, of course, this isn't okay. You go into school and you decide you're going to tell somebody. So what happens? So I went to school and I told one of my friends, I actually told two of my friends, one of them, I don't think she really understood what I was saying.
So I think she kind of just brushed it off. And we have to remember as well, these are also children who don't understand the meaning of abuse as well. They don't really understand what that means. So when obviously she blew it off at first, I was kind of like, oh, maybe it is normal because she doesn't seem to care. What did you say to her? I remember I told her, I was like, oh, I'm being abused at home.
And I showed her my bruises. So at the time I had a lot of bruises on my body. And that's what I definitely did have. And I don't think she did what I was saying. And I feel like because I was really close to her, I used to always tell her, oh, I fell down before. She always seen them as, oh, remember the time you fell and you got that bruise? So I don't think she really understood what I was saying.
So then I told my other friend, whose mom was actually a teacher, and I told her, and I don't know if she understood what I was saying either, but I feel like when she went home, she said, that's after telling me this. And I think that her mom was just like, okay. What exactly did she tell you? Do you know what I mean? Because I feel like when I told her, I don't think she understood what I meant.
But when she told her mom, she was like, oh, that's not OK. So then the next day when I went into school, that's when they pulled me aside and they asked me what exactly is going on in that house. I think it took me a while to actually tell them what was going on. But then eventually it just came out and I told them what was really going on in the house.
Why didn't you go to a teacher before?

I think what it is is and I feel like this is why a lot of children who have been abused always end up not saying anything because when you're a child and you're getting abused by an adult it's very hard to trust any adult because we are always being taught that adults are supposed to protect us so when it's an adult abusing us how do you know which adult isn't going to do the same thing and that's basically what happens because during my time as a child, it wasn't just my parents.
I seen abusing children. I seen a lot of people, a lot of adults abusing children. And it was what I've seen most of my childhood. So I was always used to thinking to myself, you can't trust anybody, especially an adult. That's why when I used to say stuff, I used to say to children, not adults, but they just didn't understand what I meant by it. When I used to go into school and I used to eat the chalk.
Like most of the kids when I was in school actually seen me doing it, but they just didn't understand. But when I used to steal other people's lunch because I was so hungry, because I used to go days without being fed, I could go a whole week with eating twice in a week. So they didn't really understand. You could go a whole week with eating twice. And so you would eat chalk at school.
You would eat anything you could find, right? Because I remember you telling me one time you would eat the wall. Yeah, I would eat the wall. I would eat sand, I would eat chalk, like I would go weeks like literally without eating. There was one day when I was a lot older, I was battling with a lot of PTSD. I went 20 days without leaving my room and eating maybe five times in those 20 days.
And that's one meal. And that was during my adulthood years because of what I've experienced during my childhood. It really affected how I ended up growing up. I was so used to not putting food in my mouth that I could go days without eating because it was what I was used to doing so when I started going to school and I started like stealing basically just to feed myself people just used to think I was really weird because they didn't understand why I was doing that they just thought this girl is really weird and one of my friends she actually reported me to her mom and her mom actually yelled at me she was like why do you keep stealing my daughter's lunch don't you dare touch my daughter's lunch again I remember going home

And I was in tears because she didn't really understand why I was doing that. But to her, she has seen me as this horrible child. And I think that's such an important thing for people to learn, especially adults. I think that we sometimes push away the little things that children do and just say, oh, they're just a child or they're this and that. And sometimes they're literally like red flags, but we're just refusing to see it.
And that's one thing I've learned because I work with a lot of children. I've worked with children since I can remember from a very young age. I've worked with a lot of children. And there's a lot of things that I've seen that I would see as red flags. But if I'm working with somebody else, they wouldn't even see it at all. What I would see straight away because I've experienced what they're going through.
So I understand when they come into a classroom and that one child. is finding it really hard to speak to another child or that one child, when you touch them, the minute you put a hand on them, they just freeze and they freak out. Or the one child, like I had a child once when I was working in a specific crèche. This child was only two years of age and she went to the toilet.
She came out of the toilet and her panties had blood all over it. And the minute I seen it, I knew exactly what was going on straight away when I seen it. And this was a tiny little child. And it was so weird because the other women were just like, oh, did you have an accident? And I was looking at them like, are you really that stupid? And I know that sounds really harsh, but in my head I was like, are you actually being for real right now?
And the first thing she told was, let me go call her parents. And I literally looked at her like, are you insane? Like, are you actually insane? Like, what is going through your brain cells right now? And that's why I work with mostly children because some adults just don't see it. at all and they just don't see the signs and it just continues and continues. And I feel like if a child is coming to you or your daughter and you're constantly trying to do a sleepover, that should be telling you something.
They're trying to get away from the house. That is the first sign of there's something going on in that house. Not that, oh my gosh, she's obsessed with my daughter. No, any child who loves being at home won't want to leave their home every day of the week. You've got this lived experience, you see, so you can see You can see things that other people can't see, and it's incredibly valuable. And the fact that you're, and you have been for a long time, working with kids is amazing.
You will be making a difference to them every day. And you're educating us. You know, you're educating people who listen to this podcast. You're educating me as a parent. You're educating so many people. I can't keep saying to you, you're fantastic. And the work that you're doing is phenomenal. We're just oblivious, I think. And I think that we don't want to think that it is something like that because we don't have that lived experience that you have and your lived experience is not mild.
You know, your lived experience is extreme, but you've turned it around so significantly and now you're using it to help other people, which is absolutely brilliant. Are you okay? I know this is big to keep telling the story. Oh yeah, no, no, I'm fine. No, it's just basically something you said like, and I think it's such a big, you said something like,

So obviously I told them what happened and I think they already called the social services even before they bring me to the office, if I'm honest. But then obviously a social worker came but they had to bring me into hospital before I go to foster care because I had to get checked up first. And I remember I had a phone at the time or I had something at the time and they found loads of pictures.
One of the pictures they found was actually a picture of me and my leg was bent the opposite way. So your leg's supposed to be straight. My leg was actually bent completely the opposite way. And my bones were actually smaller. I looked like I never left Africa in the first place. That's the way I looked. I looked like I never left it. I was still a starving child. That's literally what I looked like with the pictures that they found.
And then when I went into hospital, they had to check me for all my bruises and everything. But obviously I didn't understand at the time what they were looking for. And even when I got older, they were still checking me for different things, but I didn't understand why they were checking me like that. So I just kind of ignored it for a few minutes. So when I was in the hospital, they just kept checking me doing different tests on me.
I found out then that they were going to put me in a home in Waterford, which I did end up going into another foster home in Waterford then. And I was living with a family. I actually found it a lot more difficult than I thought I would. In my head, I thought when I go into care, I'm going to be happy and I'm going to forget about everything and life is going to be completely different.
But obviously that's not reality because I hadn't yet dealt with what I had actually gone through. And I don't think I really understood what I really went through for five years of my childhood. So when I went into care, I just found it very hard. I found it very hard to come out of what I've always known. And what I've always known is when I wanted food, I don't ask, I steal it.
It wasn't that nobody was telling me not to go eat. I would actually just not go eat. What I'll do is I'll sneak down nighttime and then go eat, because that's what I've always known. When I was told to go play outside with the kids, I would literally sit there and be in the corner and always be at the lookout, just in case. When I would go for a shower, I would literally go for the shower and run upstairs and make sure that nobody could see me.
Like, I would be afraid to come out of the toilet with even a towel on. I was so afraid to do it, just in case anybody seen me with a towel on. And it was just stuff like that. I feel like when you go through some of the things that I went through, it's very hard to live what is classed as a normal life. And I feel like that was the hardest thing for me to deal with, that I just didn't live a normal life.
And that's just the way it is, unfortunately, that my life is always going to be me having to battle with my experiences. But that's also OK.

But I just had to accept it. So you learned that you have to battle your way through life, and that's how it's going to be. And you're coming into your teenagehood now. How did you do it? How did you get through in the end? What were the things that that helped you to be the person that you are now? The first thing I had to realize was that the fight doesn't stop just because the circumstance changed.
Unfortunately, it doesn't. So the first thing that I obviously had to deal with was understanding that it was okay for me to grieve losing my parents because I did lose my parents. And I feel like that was such a hard thing for me to understand that I actually lost a lot the day I went into foster care. Even though I wasn't living a happy life, I was going to have to grow up with the rest of my life never having a mum and dad.
And that's a very hard thing to do for any child. So that's one thing I had to learn to live with. And I also had to learn to accept my foster care as my new guardian. Because I feel like when I was so used to always being alone and fighting for myself alone, that when I had people that wanted to take care of me, I didn't really understand how to accept that.
So it was very hard for me to allow that in. It first started when I went to live in a different town with a different family. And I actually lived with this family for six years. And me and this family went through a lot together because I would have said this was the family where I truly learned to accept that I lost my parents that day. I lost my siblings that day as well.
But also I gained a new family and I had to accept it. So when I was living there, I was actually going to therapy a lot of the time. So usually most of my friends after school, they would go hang out with each other while I was literally in the therapist's office for most of it, trying to deal with my feelings and obviously speak to them and kind of get through everything.
But obviously I didn't really want to be there because in my head I was like, but there's nothing wrong with me anymore, so why am I here? You know? So what happened was because I wasn't really dealing with my feelings, I started to have really huge breakdowns where I would stay in my room for weeks on end. I wouldn't come out and I wouldn't eat like weeks on end. My foster care parents at the time, they had such great patience.
And they always used to take care of me. Even if I wouldn't come out of the room, they always used to bring me food every day. They would always come up and check up on me. And I was a lot at the time to deal with, like, I put a lot of strain on this family as well, because I did come with a lot. And I feel like that's how really I dealt with it.
Because I don't think if I hadn't moved to that house, and I hadn't been put with the family that I was put with, a lot of families would have been like, we would just want a different child. We don't want to deal with this. This is not what we signed up for. I don't think I would have been the person I am today and I would have learned what I've learned today because they definitely taught me a lot.
Like even when I used to go into school and my teachers would say to me, I would never go to college. I had learning difficulties. I remember my foster guardian used to turn around to me and she'd say to me, don't ever let somebody tell you what you can do. What you're going to do is you're going to prove everybody wrong.

So tell us about you now, Destiny. What are you doing? What are you up to? What are your plans and dreams and shooting stars now? One thing like I always say is with the way I was raised, I was raised to always understand that the word survivor is a privileged word. And my foster mother, she actually had cancer and she created a charity that helps people that had cancer. And for six years, I took part in that. and that literally taught me that just because you get to call yourself a survivor doesn't mean you stop fighting for the people that don't get to use that word.
So right now what I started doing was when I was 18 I started working with charities like Concern and I started working with Mostly Children and I started working with charities like Mind the Gap Ireland which basically helped women and children. tell their stories of sexual violence anonymously. And also, during the COVID pandemic, I actually started off the 1,000-euro challenge, where I noticed that a lot of organizations couldn't continue doing their work during the pandemic.
And I was privileged enough to have gotten a scholarship into college. So I actually used my scholarship every month to be donating 100 euros to all of those charities to help them continue their work. during the pandemic so they can keep helping children. And I think that that's so important because I feel like during the pandemic sometimes we forgot about other people and we just thought about how we can keep ourselves safe.
And we forgot about all the charities that are still fighting to keep children safe, that's still fighting to keep women safe. We can't stop helping them because if we do they're going to have nobody. So that's one of the things I was doing and right now I'm working with Plan Ireland. And we actually started the Vaughan Scholarship Scheme, where we'd be helping three girls during the year where they'll be getting education for the whole year from Africa, which is where I'm from, which has helped them not have to go into child marriages anymore.
This is new. The Vaughan… Are you really chuffed with that? The Vaughan Scholarship Scheme? Are you kidding me? That's fantastic. Oh, my God. Look at you. You've even got a scholarship scheme named after you now. My goodness.

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