Success Is Learning to Walk Again

Success is six years old. She likes the things most six-year-olds like — and until this year, she had the carefree childhood every child deserves. That changed when armed militants attacked her Christian community in Kaduna, and Success was shot twice while fleeing with her mother.

What matters now isn’t the day it happened. It’s every day since.

The injury to her ankle was severe enough that doctors had to remove part of the bone just to save her leg. What should have been months of childhood became months of hospital visits, pain, and a recovery that asked more patience of a six-year-old than most adults ever have to find. Everyone who has walked alongside her says the same thing: her courage has been remarkable.

Success still needs reconstructive surgery and a skin graft before she can walk normally again. Thanks to the initial care provided by Vans Without Borders and the ongoing support of Equipping the Persecuted, she has now been admitted to the hospital to begin that specialist treatment — a real milestone, though her road to recovery is only beginning.

Her story isn’t unique. Across Nigeria, children like Success carry the weight of violence they had no part in choosing, often with little support and even less attention. But Success is not walking this road alone. Her recovery is a small, stubborn act of hope — proof that healing is possible, and that showing up for one child, one surgery, one hospital stay at a time, is how that hope becomes real.