Secondary School & Supplies for Excelling Students

There is nothing more beautiful then a young woman about to burst with joy. Her happiness is impossible to be contained , it starts to seep out her eyes as they light up... what can she say? No words describe it. Her body closes in on itself as I take her picture because she knows she has not felt this way in so long. She didn't own these clothes they were a gift. For her it is as if she had just been transformed into someone that she had only ever dreamed about being. Seba is this young girl. She was dressed for success and it felt so sweet. Seba was dealt a difficult set of cards. Her parents are older and her dad does not have a steady job. As a couple they did not have much to give to their children although they tried. One of her brothers made it through school and started supporting his two sisters in school but this was short lived. Just when school began to get expensive he became sick and died. Now her parents are too old and have left Seba and her sister to fend for themselves. School was out of the question. Seba joined the single moms tailoring project at Chikumbuso and was a light in the classroom. She was shy, never demanding and so thankful to be there learning a trade. Her sister had been sponsored by Chikumbuso and was at school. One day I asked her how many children she had and she told me that she didn't have any babies. That she knew it was a single moms class but she was desperate to do something and begged the teacher to let her in. I was surprised by her clarity of thought and her capacity in English so I asked her why she was not in school. She explained her story and told me that it had been three years since she was in school. If she went back she would be in 10th grade. Thanks to all of you she is back in school. She spends her mornings there and her afternoons at Chikumbuso, her home away from home. She wants to be a journalist and write stories. She understands the privilege of school, a gift that can never be taken away and a gift that perhaps one day she can give to someone else.