My Choices, my Future, my Success

Walking six hours by foot for one way from home to the college I wanted to attend, I knew it was worth the social change I always wanted to create.

My first day to school I was 4, living in a refugee camp, and I went straight to the first year of primary school because I could not bear with the challenges I was seeing my friends in nursery school facing: being beaten almost every afternoon because they lost their cups that they had to carry every day to get the porridge at school!

The only way to make it was to convince my parents who thought I was too young to go to school and after that I had to pass a school test to prove why I have to go straight to P1. I had no idea on how to make the first step with my parents and I decided to wake up every morning and leave home as my brother and sister go to school, spending the whole morning on the streets of the camp and making the tour of the whole camp to see if I can get something new to share with my sister at the end of the day so that she can tell me what she learned at school.

My weird attitude made my parents decide to take me to school and after passing the test I was admitted to P1. It was my first time feeling like celebrating a victory! Being in the first of the class, I completed my high school without repeating any grade, and have been awarded for the government scholarship to do Education in my university. I was not good at talking, not good in communication by speaking, but I knew that I could communicate through other mediums.

I decided to shift from Education to Technology, which was too hard to exchange at that time neither with moral support nor with financial support. I had to walk for six hours from home to the college I needed to shift to, things that were strange and no sense to the persons from whom I needed support the most; but finally with my resilience, I got admitted to the College of Technology and have chosen to do Information Technology because I knew Information is power, and I could use the power of information in different ways to save lives.

After graduating from my chosen college with an advanced diploma in Information Technology, I went to a private university to complete with a bachelor’s degree in Business Information and Communication Technology, and this time I had a stronger vision. From my experience at this university, I realized that success can’t be straight as we thing about it as a simple word and that for every hard work and resilience we dispose we get paid sooner or later.

I had to attend the day class, evening class and weekend class at the same time to obtain my degree in two years. Despite that devotion for my studies, my coordinator could not stop harassing me in all ways, setting my timetable to sit for three exams at the same time, refusing to mark my exam papers for courses that he was teaching us, and many others that I could not even know where to report. I shifted to the virtual class and he told me that I will not graduate unless he left that school. He assured his word for one year and I didn’t graduate directly even though I had everything that I could need to graduate except the command of that one person to put my name on the graduation list.

I sat home for a whole year waiting for the next graduation to fight for my rights. During that period I could feel well how it feels to face injustice, how it feels to be a gender based violence victim, how it feels to be unemployed because you don’t have a required document that you have been refused unfairly, yet you have skills needed to pursue that job. I had 365 days to feel the anger as I was fighting for my rights and for other women who were facing the same challenge I faced.

After missing two graduations, every office at school knew my issues with the coordinator, and making it to be on the graduation list has been a celebration to a number of people that I could not even get if I didn’t fight. It’s during that time that I launched my magazine, Cosmos Magazine, featuring women issues, and I almost forgotten all the struggles I went through when I saw myself featured on the forefront of the school website for the whole week celebrating my achievements - My story being in the front line

My choice to digitally save lives started in my determination to learn and learn again to nurture my skills to create a meaningful impact. My background in IT, Media and Business with my passion to improve Health introduced me to the HealthTech world that motivates me to work hard and harder to contribute for the Wealthy Africa we want.

How to Get Involved

Read our magazine on https://issuu.com/cosmosmagazine9