History
My Story
Solome Nanvule started a project in Nansana which she registered as Pelletier Teenage Mothers Foundation International (PTMOFI) in memory of her late benefactor, Fr Reinard Pelletier, a French-Canadian who paid her school fees from primary through to university.
“I met Fr Pelletier in 1986 when I was at St Theresa Mitala Maria Primary School. He was the parish priest of Mitala Maria, serving under the White Missionaries of Africa. He must have found me worth helping, given my poverty-stricken background,” she says.
Fr Pelletier had started an organization at the parish called Excavellian Movement with Nanvule as the group leader. Her qualities became outstanding as a leader which prompted the Catholic Father to take a keen interest in the young girls. A rough childhood: Nanvule and her siblings were raised by a single mother, having been abandoned by their father.
Pregnant at 19
She was however pregnant by the time she went to Canada giving birth after six months in early 2002. “Fr Pelletier did not know that I was pregnant. When I confided in my mother, she was furious and worried that the Father would cancel the trip to Canada if he discovered I was pregnant,” she narrates.
Solome immigrated to Canada when she was pregnant and enrolled in the teen pregnancy program for new immigrants. The Canadian government took good care of her, paying for her housing, food coupons, bus tickets, and according to her free medical services until she gave birth in 2002. The government continued to support her and the baby, and she was able to go back to school and attain the HONS.
Bachelor of Social Work at Ryerson University Toronto and thereafter obtained a job in Community Service as a Social Worker for Youth, Men, and Women among the organizations Solome has worked for include St.Vicent de Paul, Turning Point Youth Services, and City of Toronto Housing and shelter services.
Looking back on her journey as a teen mother in a foreign country Solome decided to pick up the Legacy of her Foster Parent the Late Rev. Fr. Raynald Pelletier who raised her from the age of 10 until 20 yrs and started a Multi-Service Center for pregnant and Parenting mothers in Toronto Canada since 2017.
