Needed: School Lunches!

Zoenabou is an extraordinary young woman who is in her final year at the Lycee Moderne de l’Amitie, emphasizing literature and philosophy in her studies.  She tells her story:  I was born in Ivory Coast.  My father was from Burkina and had gone to Ivory Coast at a very young age to work in the cocoa plantations.   My mother was from Ivory Coast.  Neither had any formal education.  I had two brothers.  We lived in a migrant camp that had no school. 

During the civil war in Ivory Coast in 2004, the migrant camp where my family lived was destroyed.  Hundreds of people were killed, including my parents and brothers.  As Burkinabe survivors of the massacre organized to return to Burkina, a woman recognized me and had known my parents.  She accompanied me to my father’s village in northern Burkina.  My aunt, who had lost her husband, took me in and thanks to the little she earned from selling her crops, and to the understanding of the local primary school director, at ten years old I was able to enroll in primary school. 

Throughout my school years, I have been the oldest student in my class for which have been teased and ridiculed. 

Today, I am in my final year of secondary school.  For the past three years, I have benefitted from the school canteen which you all support.  I thank you from the bottom of my heart.  The canteen is what has given me the ability and strength to pursue my studies.  Without it, I would have abandoned school a long time ago.  The school canteen is in a way a motivation to succeed.   Following secondary school, I hope to become a midwife and to help women in all aspects of maternal and child health.

For all of the girls like Zoenabou who have no one else to turn to, a simple noon meal of rice, spaghetti or beans enables them to concentrate so that they can succeed in their studies.

Your past, and continuing, support for the school canteen at the Lycee Moderne de l’Amitie is greatly appreciated.