On a humid afternoon in Nseke village, Mpigi District, the cries of a newborn once echoed through the modest two-room house of Hadija Namutebi. For the 28-year-old mother of four, the sound was pure joy the final piece of what she called her “dream life.” She had a caring husband, healthy children, and now, a baby boy who she believed would complete their family.

But that joy lasted only a few days. Her baby developed a fever that refused to subside. At first, Hadija dismissed it as normal. “All babies get sick,” she told herself, cradling him tightly on a thin mattress spread across their bedroom floor. But soon, the baby’s soft brown skin erupted in angry rashes. He cried endlessly, his tiny fists clenching with pain. That’s when whispers began spreading in the village, whispers that carried more weight than any medical diagnosis.

“They said my child was bewitched,” Hadija recalls, sitting on a worn stool in her mother’s cramped sitting room in Nansana, Wakiso. The room, meant for six, now houses more than ten family members. A flickering television blares a dubbed Mexican telenovela as Hadija strokes her baby’s head, her eyes clouded with sadness. “Even my husband started to believe it. One day, he told me to leave.”

Banished from her marital home and abandoned at her lowest, Hadija gathered her children and walked away from the life she had built. She returned to her mother’s modest home, where survival became a daily struggle. The shame of rejection cut deep, but nothing compared to the fear of losing her newborn.

It was here, in this crowded space filled with worry, that help finally found her. Uganda Red Cross Society volunteers, supported by UNICEF, had been moving door-to-door in Mpigi communities, distributing flyers and speaking in local languages about a disease many had never heard of — Mpox.

They knocked on Hadija’s mother’s door, their voices firm yet compassionate. They recognized the child’s symptoms and urged Hadija to rush him to Mulago Hospital. There, after days of unanswered questions, she received the news: her baby had Mpox.

“I had never even heard that name,” she says, tears rolling down her face. “I felt guilty, like I had failed him.”

But the nightmare was far from over. While tending to her son at Entebbe Grade B Hospital, Hadija herself contracted the virus. The infection robbed her of partial eyesight. For weeks, she lay in pain beside her baby, both battling a disease that carried not only physical scars but also the weight of stigma.

Her baby’s ordeal was even more devastating. The infection caused irreparable damage to his private organs. Today, he urinates through a urinary catheter that must be changed weekly. Each visit to the hospital costs more than Hadija can afford. “Sometimes, I borrow. Sometimes, I just cry,” she says, clutching the boy to her chest.

Yet amid the heartbreak, Hadija’s story carries a fragile thread of hope.

The Uganda Red Cross Society outreach campaigns are slowly shifting the tide. In Mpigi and beyond, volunteers have been training communities to recognize symptoms early, using posters in Luganda, mobile vans with megaphones, and even street theatre to dismantle myths. Radio talk shows now echo with facts instead of fear. Families once too afraid to seek help are visiting health centers sooner.

For Hadija, that knowledge came too late. But she hopes her voice can spare others.

“Maybe my baby’s suffering can be a lesson,” she whispers. “Maybe another mother will not lose her home, her health, her child’s future.”

Her journey is a stark reminder of the price of misinformation, but also of the power of compassion, education, and community resilience. And while her dreams may have been shattered, her story may yet help build a stronger future for mothers like her across Uganda.