My Promise: 2016

Sunday, April 10, 2016

THERE IS A WILL, AND SO, THERE IS A WAY: Chifuniro's story

I remember vividly the first time I saw my mother; it is because she was in a coffin. I was 13 then and at a boarding school. My father came to my school and told me we were going to visit people at my home village. It was my first time to go to the place my father came from. As we drew closer, I saw a crowd of people surrounding the houses. I was greeted by leaves along the road which in my culture announces a funeral. Older women came to welcome us, they took me in a house and told me I was here for my mother’s funeral.

I was confused because the year before we had laid to rest my mother, so, “who was this lady?”

I was told then, the lady I knew as my mother, my whole life, was my step mother but this one was my biological mother.

I had so many questions but everyone was silent, they silenced me too. After the funeral I went back to school, and upon completion of my second term that school year, I went home to an empty house. I asked our neighbors where my father and siblings had gone and I was told they had moved to Zimbabwe. I couldn’t understand why they decided to leave without me and I had no way to get to them.

This was the beginning of the next phase of my miserable life. A friend of my dad’s contacted him and my father said, life was too expensive there; he couldn’t afford to have me there. I lived at the mercy of people who invited me into their homes and chased me out at their will. Differences in religion, preferences, needs, appearances would have me chased out of homes. Several times I have dropped out of school but graciously I completed my high school. My father died in diaspora. I have been helped to succeed to college, but school fees is now my problem. I am looking for donations, Jobs, scholarships, anything that could help pay for my college fees.

For more information, enquiries or to support the works of Voices Awake, email Vanessa Mwangala at mwangalav@gmail.com, call or whatsapp on +265888191832 or follow on
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Wednesday, March 16, 2016

TRAGEDY KILLS NO POTENTIAL WITHIN: The story of Alinafe Kalambule

I have been passed on from home to home since my father died. My name is Alinafe meaning ‘God with us’. I come from a family of four, three girls and a boy. My father passed away in 2002, followed by my mother in 2004. At the time of my mother’s demise, she had been divorced from my father and had remarried. My stepfather treated me with cruelty. He would beat me for no real reason or refuse to give me food. I was being starved in my mother’s presence.

After the death of my mother, my uncle offered to take care of me. His wife however didn’t like the idea so he would cook up lies and tell my uncle, and eventually my uncle became angry with me. They asked me to move out of their house and find someplace else to stay. I started living alone on the streets and weeks went by without food until my grandmother came to my rescue and offered me a place to stay.

I stayed with her till I reached my primary 8. I did very well in my National examinations but I failed to go to Secondary School due to lack of school fees. I begged around my relatives but everybody had enough problems to help me. I stayed at home for 2 years without school.

In 2012, another one of my uncles called me and started paying my fees as I lived with him. He also provided my basic needs. He died in 2013 and my aunt, his wife couldn’t pay for my school fees as she had no means of getting money.

In my moment of despair, Aunt Vanessa came to Madisi and started Voices Awake. She completely changed my poverty mindset as she encouraged me, mentored me and helped me solve some of my problems. I realized I could do something to enhance my life; I had the power in me. I stopped relying on help so much but what I could do with what I had, or what I could do to get what I needed. My spiritual life became stabilized, I learnt to forgive and love others. She gave me gifts like clothes, shoes and stationary. Part of my school fees was sponsored while I did small businesses like selling rice and charcoal to raise the rest.

Some of the lessons from Voices Awake I will never forget is, “never forget where you are coming from. Where you are coming from helps determine where you want to go in your life and where you do not want to be. Work hard and be faithful in small tasks. You can transform your life, you can be where you want to be and you can have a beautiful future. You have the power to change your circumstances. You are not a curse but a blessing and only God can squeeze a curse into a blessing.” These words push me forward all the time.