Impacting lives, one child at a time.
First, the community and the surrounding communities were known for been violent with corps members, and very rude, especially to the females. They believed there was nothing special about them anyway since they won’t be with them for long, so tend to misbehave, and sometime, hurt them. I remember a senior corps member told me one of her students wore charm to school to hurt her, but the heavens were so merciful to her that the boy got caught before he could do anything.
When I resumed to the school and was introduced with my other corps members, I could feel the unspoken heat, but I was determined to make my stay there worthwhile and impactful to the kids especially. I felt it was their lack of exposure that made them behave the way they did until I found out that most of them were in school, not because they wanted to be in school, but because their parents do not want them missing out on the greatness of being a learned. However, what’s there to go to school for when they already have striving mini businesses that could cater for them and their little family?
Well, I needed to first change that impression, then stimulate their interest in education, after which I would hold their hands through an in-depth career session. This, I did with my friend whom we served together.
The first day I entered their class, it was terror. They could swear they never would see my face anywhere again, but after about three encounters, they wanted to listen to what I had to say because one way or the other, they learned a thing.
One day, one of the students asked a question that I never expected. In his local dialect, he said, “aunty, I want to be able to speak English language like you. What do I need to do?” Oh, it was a PHE class, but we had to convert the class to a career session.
I started by narrating how I ended up speaking the way I do by mimicking my English language teacher in high school. I was exactly their age. I told them how I read a lot, learnt pronunciations and word meanings, and eventually won the best student in English language even though the teacher beat the hell out of me. Not that I beat the kids, it was just a way to make them laugh.
I remember telling them how I came from a humble background and how their community is more developed than my village, but none of them believed me when I said I wasn’t from Lagos state. Eh eh. To them, I appear way too tush to not be from the almighty Lagos state. In the end, we picked a day for an in-depth career session.
The session started with a question from Jelilat. She said, “I want to be a fashion designer, but not the usual one we have here. I want to be a world class fashion designer. Will going to school help with that too? If yes, which schools will you suggest?”
Uthman, a popular truant asked how he could be better at his studies. He said, “I run away from school because I don’t understand anything they teach and I’ll be punished for that. So, I feel it’s better I stay away from school and just go and face my hustle. I want to be better now. What can I do, please?
To say I was shocked was an understatement. Apparently, these kids have been watching my friend and I closely and trusted us so much to believe everything we said to them. It was such an experience I can’t forget for a long time.
When my passing out period was approaching, I went to school, fully kitted took pictures with my wonderful kids to have beautiful memories of the community. I really look forward to seeing them in the future, bigger, better, and wiser than the way I left them over a year ago.
All images are mine.
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