At the age of 11, Tony Mutabazi was abandoned by his adoptive parents. Two years later, a single dad has given him a loving home.
When Peter Mutabazi, from Charlotte, North Carolina, got a call asking to take Tony for the weekend, he only expected to have him for a couple of days.
However, destiny had other plans after Peter heard the teen’s story. ‘By that time, I was crying. I thought, who would do that? Once I knew the parents’ rights were signed off and he had nowhere to go, I [knew] I had to take him,’ he said.
Tony had been brought up in the foster care system since the age of two (no details are known regarding his biological parents). At four years old, he was adopted by an Oklahoma couple – however, when he was 11, they left him at a hospital and never came back. ‘He asked if his parents were coming to get him and they said no, [we have] no idea why,’ Peter explained.
It wasn’t until January 2018 that Peter got a call from Tony’s foster care worker, Jessica Ward, asking if he could take him for a weekend stay. It became quickly apparent that they were a match, and in November 12 last year he officially adopted him.
Peter told Good Morning America:
He’s the nicest, smartest kid I’ve ever had. From day one, he’s always called me ‘dad’. He truly meant it and he looks up to me. He’s proud to show me at school and say: ‘Hey, he’s my dad.’ That’s something that I love about him. I had the room, the resources, so I had no reason to let him go. For what someone did for me, I wanted to do something for someone else.
Peter has been a foster parent for three years, helping to raise 12 children. He originally grew up in Uganda, but fled from his abusive home at the age of 10. Thankfully, he found a parent figure who helped him through school.
Peter added:
They became my sponsor, my family. I grew up the poor of the poorest people on the planet. I grew up where no one told me to dream, that there was no future for me.
Ward, who works with Angels Foster Family Network in Edmond, called the pair’s story ‘beautiful and amazing’. ‘[Tony] had some issues that he was dealing with from foster care and trauma when he was abandoned, so Peter knew once he took him in, that was it. Because of the age Peter was when all of the things happened in his world, I feel like that’s been such a connection for him and Tony,’ she added.
The father and son enjoy a whole host of activities together, like watching movies and cycling, and they’re also due to welcome a further child into their home.
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After graduating from Glasgow Caledonian University with an NCTJ and BCTJ-accredited Multimedia Journalism degree, Cameron ventured into the world of print journalism at The National, while also working as a freelance film journalist on the side, becoming an accredited Rotten Tomatoes critic in the process. He’s now left his Scottish homelands and took up residence at UNILAD as a journalist.