How will I manage to pay school fees? Andaccommodation?" These questions
assaulted Andrew Kamanga’s mind after he heard that he had been selected
to The Polytechnic, a constituent college of the
University of Malawi.
Kamanga is currently in third year at thecollege, pursuing journalism and media studies. Save Our Souls (SOS) is paying for his accommodation andfees balances.
Andrew Kamanga
He lost his father when he was only four yearsold. Born in 1994,
he is the third born in a family of eight.
"I started feeling the pain of my father's death when I
grew up as I could see my mother struggling to take care of us. She could wake
up at 4 o'clock in the morning, carrying heavy loads of maize and other crops
from Nkhata Bay to Mzuzu on foot to sell,” narrates Andrew who did his primary
and secondary education in Nkhata Bay.
He adds: “Now that I could see how she was suffering for our
sake, I really wanted to pay her back one day. I was convinced the only way I
could earn her a good living was through education.”
The hard situations could not let Kamanga to perfect scores
rather he got 20 points in the Malawi School Certificate of Education (MSCE)
examinations in 2013. He was not selected to any university college despite
several efforts.
"I did not lose hope. I still believed that I was
intelligent and that it was only through education I could have a good future.
I totally rejected the 20 points I scored as I thought I could do
better than that,” he said.
He resolved to sit again for the MSCE exams but the challenge
was school fees as his mother was already struggling to pay for his young
brother.
In his pursuit of his dreams, Kamanga joined G4S where he was working as a security guard so
that he saves money and go back to school.
"Life was very hard at G4S as people laughed at me. Some
could point fingers at me when I passed closer their homes, probably because
they did not expect a young person like me to be a guard—a profession so
demeaning, associated with old and illiterate people as per
societal perspective,” says Kamanga.
G4S posted the young security guard to Mzuzu SOS Children's
Village gate where he worked for about a year. Staff members at SOS encouraged
him to go back to school and this energised his longing for education.
After saving enough, Andrew resigned and went back to Form 3
at Katoto Secondary School.
When he was in Form 4, SOS, through their Family Strengthening
Programme, identified Kamanga’s family as one of the vulnerable and started
paying school fees for him and other family members.
He scored nine points in the 2016 MSCE.
"I was very happy to hear that I was the highest and only
one with single digit points at Katoto in 2016. I wanted to challenge SOS
because they had promised to continue paying school fees for me if I went to
university,” he says.
The fears that troubled Andrew became history as SOS kept their
promise; they are paying for accommodation and meals for him and his young
brother Brown who is in third year at the same institution, studying Internal
Auditing.
"I will forever remain grateful to SOS for the support they
have been rendering to my brother and I”.
This is Andrew Kamanga’s story, hope has motivated you somehow.
