Wednesday 20th April
Today it happened again that Mohamed was unavailable for part of the day. So during that time I sat down again with Wurie to look at the photocopying project. The thing that most touched me about this project was that Wurie was willing for the proceeds to go the members to fund their tertiary education, which meant that he himself would not get any financial benefit from the project.
Wurie told me his story, and since he told me it's on the EducAid website, I'm sure he won't mind me repeating it here.
He lived near Port Loko with his uncle. (I think he is an orphan) One day Miriam was returning from one of the sites to Freetown and the vehicle broke down. It was getting fixed across the road from Wurie's uncle's house, and that is how Wurie found out about EducAid. At first his cousin was hesitant about going to this school, especially since it would require a significant amount of walking to get to the school. But Wurie persuaded him. Since then Wurie went on to become something of an academic star, as far as I can gather (although Wurie was too modest to tell me this himself)
He got sponsorship to go to university in Freetown, and will soon be taking his final exams. As he spoke I realised that I was speaking to someone who, in many ways, had been transformed by EducAid from a nobody into a somebody. Having a degree in Sierra Leone is no mean feat if you start life as a poor kid in the provinces, and it warmed my heart that his natural response to having received this life-tranforming gift was to want to share it with others.
No comments:
Post a Comment