I grew up never knowing what really counts in my future. Nevertheless I had a vague and optimistic hope of becoming someone with a difference not knowing one day I would make an impact on someone's destiny.
Amidst all hurdles and struggles in my life, I would look at the sky and wish I would be the metal bird and wander round the world.
I built paper planes and kites and fantasized like in a fairytale. The journeys to some countries in Southern and East Africa woke up a realistic and vibrant spirit in me. If you want to see change in the society you have to be the change itself.
Images of children with flickering smiles through the villages, schools, and orphanges showered with enthuasism, vigour and exicitement surrounded us. Those were the faces of African children welcoming the Cosmos Education team "big brother World ' to others. The arrival to Cape Town was an orientation for the new faces as we tried to know each other in order to accomplish the mission of inspring, engaging and empowering the little joyous souls on the transformation science education could do on our continents soil.
Miraculously the team of young graduates students and professionals from Kenya, America, South Africa, Mexico, Zambia, UK started their genesis into the Northern Provinces of South Africa. The Cape of Good Hope left a mark of thrill and excitement when the baboons jumped into the truck and took some tomatoes and scattered some biltong’ dried meat in the front seats. The guys inside went wild and screamed.
As we passed the sparsely populated horizons, whispers of clicking sounds on the lone, dry stretching landscape reminded me that I was not in Kenya, but a foreign land. I tried my best to learn the word Xhosa but to my surprise it has taken me longer than French, Spanish to pronounce the word. The common phrases around become Yeboah, -meaning yes, Sawubona and Dumela, as they easily identified with the kids.
The look in the children’s eyes tells a lot, to captivate and capture the littlest soul and understand what they want feel and how you can help counts a lot. The most challenging and was the visits to the safety homes, it was moving when the small kids of 11years-16 awaited for their trial after committing petty crimes mostly because of peer pressure and drug influence. But all the same the magnificent 13 bonded with them.
The vulnerability of the child is essential, all children look alike in their uniforms but with different backgrounds. The revelation of entering and visiting schools in Soweto and casted all my doubts and fears of it being a dangerous and foreboding or unknowable danger zone to visit. The schools almost concentrated in all the zones opened up my mind and heart of the jolly, bright kids listening attentively.
As we move around Swaziland,Botswana and feel the warm weather and the welcoming looks on the enlighten and of more kids' the future who are expressing their long renewed energizing of the human spirit.
Development seemed a longing for the future of the kids and a sense of a new place intellectually, socially, physically as well as psychological. Education is the only magic word that can break the chains and tears in the eyes of the child,for a bright and promising future.The liberation of a free world to move and seek knowledge and cope up with the ever-changing technology.
I understood that the child needed a soul to look to and a hand to lead him into the future, a future we all anticipate for. The culture, values and beliefs we cling to form our prerequisite goals in life, but a change of heart or shift in attitudes is made by you out there. A glimpse of hope, survival, safety, security, and a better continent is in our dreams --- as young as we are we can make change for others who need us.
I need you to become who I am.
« return.