“The greatest contribution to society is made by those who turn understanding into action and service into lasting impact.”
Introduction
I was fifteen when I learned what poverty really meant. My father was dead. We could not bury him. Not because we did not love him. Not because we did not try. We simply could not afford it. I stood there and watched as they placed him in a plain box. No finish. No dignity. Just wood. My aunt took a sheet and covered it. That was all we had. I remember staring at that box and thinking, this cannot be the end of a man’s life. That moment broke something in me. And it built something in me at the same time. Because I made a decision right there. My mother would never be buried like that. Never.
Before that day, life was already challenging. There were mornings I woke up at four o’clock to sweep the streets. Not because I wanted to. Because I had to. I made sure no one saw me. Pride does not feed you. But shame can break you. Some days I went to school without shoes. Some days there was no food. We made dumplings and used chicken fat from the shop as oil. That was survival. You eat. You drink water. You stay alive. That was life.
Violence was everywhere. I stood one day and saw a man with an M16. Police rushed in. My life flashed before my eyes. Another day, shots were fired. Twelve shots. One caught my foot. I lived. Some of my friends did not. I could have gone that way. I was pushed toward it. But something kept pulling me back. My mother. Her prayers. Her tears. She would wake up crying before anything even happened. Like she knew. And I started to believe something bigger was guiding me. Even when I had nothing. No money. No support. No system helping me. I tried to build something. I was rejected. No collateral. No backing. No opportunity. Doors closed.
People laughed and called me names for doing work they did not understand. But I kept going. Because I had seen too much. A ten-year-old girl is pregnant. A child abused by her father. Young men are dying before they have the chance to become men. I could not unsee it. And I knew one thing. If I did nothing, I would become another story that ended too early. So I decided I would become something else. Not for myself alone. For every youth who feels stuck. For every family that cannot afford to bury their dead. For every child who thinks this moment is all life has to offer. This is my story. Not a perfect one. But a real one.
Phase 1: The Awakening of Purpose
I was born into struggle, but not into disorder. Our home was a one bedroom board house with a zinc roof. The floor was weak. If you stepped in the wrong place, your foot could go through. Insects came up from the cracks. When rain fell, it came inside. We placed buckets around the house to catch the water dripping from the roof. The house was poor, but it was not careless. My mother did not allow that. She was strict. Every board had to shine. The floor had to be clean. Even the steps had to look proper. She used to say she had to use her hands to make fashion. We did not have much, but she made sure we carried ourselves with dignity. In that one room lived my mother, my siblings, and me. Space was tight. Life was tight. But discipline held us together.
My days started early. Sweep the house. Clean the boards. Help prepare food. Look after my siblings. I learned to cook from a young age. Not because I wanted to, but because I had to. Responsibility came before comfort. We would go to school and come back to the same question.
One meal I will never forget was dumpling with chicken fat oil. We could not afford cooking oil. We had to go to the shop and ask for chicken back fat. They would give it to us. We would fry it down and extract the oil. When it cooled, it became thick and greasy. We knocked it out of a bottle and used it on dumplings. That was our meal. That was survival. Before we ate, my mother made us say something. “Thank the Lord and bless the hand. Mi mother don’t have any money but my belly full.” We said it like a prayer.
I still carry those words with me. Because they taught me something early. Gratitude is not based on how much you have. It is based on how you see what you have. School became my escape. I loved school. It gave me structure. It gave me hope. Teachers saw something in me and helped where they could. Books. Fees. Encouragement. They gave me support when I needed it most. But poverty followed me there too. I remember one day clearly. My shoes were worn out. The colour had stripped off. I painted them blue to make them look better. To make them last. Instead, it made me stand out. A little girl from next door laughed at me. She called out about my blue shoes in front of others. I felt it. That kind of shame stays with you. But it also shapes you. It teaches you what it feels like to be looked down on. It teaches you what it means to have nothing and still try. And it plants something inside you. The desire to rise. The first time I felt like I could become something was at school. A programme from the United Nations Population Fund came into the community. I spoke up. I shared what I knew.
People in the community did not take me seriously. They thought I was talking nonsense. But the people from the programme listened. They said I was right. That moment changed something in me. For the first time, I felt seen. I felt like I had value. I felt like I could become someone. Then came another moment. We started a Junior Achievement programme. We were selling baked goods. Shares were two dollars. We made profit and gave back four dollars. I was out on the road one day when a man selling newspapers stopped me. He showed me something. My picture was in The Star. I stood there and looked at it. That moment stayed with me. Because it showed me something simple but powerful. I was not invisible.
Phase 2 : Stepping Into Service
Purpose means nothing until you step into people’s lives. That is where I learned the real work. When I started working in the community, I was not sitting in an office. I was on the ground. In the streets. In the homes. In the spaces where people were hurting and no one was watching. I met young men who were ready to end their lives. I met others who were ready to pick up guns. Some already had them. Illegal firearms. Gang pressure. Fast life. Fast money.
That world looked attractive to many of them. It looked powerful. It looked respected. But I knew where it led. I sat with them. I spoke with them. Not from a place of judgement, but from a place of truth. I showed them what the road would cost them. Not only prison. Not only death. But the loss of everything they could have become. They could have become. Some listened. Some walked away. Some came back later and said something I will never forget. “You saved my life.” Those words carried weight. Because I knew how close they were to going the other way. But while I was helping others stay alive, I was also fighting my own battles.
There is a side of community work people do not talk about. The sacrifice. The lack of support. The silence. I was doing the work every day. Going beyond hours. No schedule. No limits. Social work is not a job you clock out of. It follows you. It stays with you. But recognition did not come. Funding did not come. Sometimes the people getting the support were not even doing the real work. That was hard. It makes you question yourself. It makes you feel invisible.
There were moments I felt overwhelmed. Moments I felt like everything was falling on me at once. Trying to help people. Trying to survive. Trying to build something from nothing. It felt like pressure from every direction. And in the middle of all of that, I made a mistake. I started to follow the wrong company. Because from the outside, it looked appealing. The lifestyle looked strong. It looked respected. It looked like power. But that image is a lie. That path leads to prison or death. Nothing else. I learned that the hard way. One day, I found myself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Gunshots. Chaos. Twelve shots fired. One caught me. I was hit in my foot. I survived. Others did not. That moment forced me to face reality. I had a choice to make. Continue down that road and become another statistic. Or step away and become something different. I chose to step away. And I say this clearly for every young person who will read this. Bad company will destroy your future. It does not matter how good you think you are.
Phase 3 : Building A Platform For Service
Leadership is not a title. It is responsibility. When I stepped into leadership, the work became harder. It was no longer about showing up. It was about building trust. In the community, trust is everything. Parents were not going to send their daughters or sons to sit with someone they did not believe in. Grandmothers were watching. Fathers were watching. Mothers were asking questions. I had to prove myself. Not with words. With consistency. I had to show them that their children were safe. That the space I was creating was real. That I was not there for show. I was there for purpose. That took time. It took patience. It took presence. I was not only working with youth. I was working with families. That is when I understood something important.
If you win the parents, you win the community. If you lose their trust, you lose everything. At the same time, I was trying to run programmes with almost nothing. No proper funding. No stable support. But the work did not stop. We used what we had. The community stepped in. Someone would help prepare food. Someone would host a space. Someone would organise materials. It was not perfect. The food was simple. The sessions were shorter. The resources were limited. But the impact was real. We did not wait for perfect conditions. We worked with what was in our hands. That is how the programmes survived. That is how the mission grew. But behind the work, there was pressure. Real pressure. Then my life changed again.
My daughter was born. That moment shifted everything. Responsibility became heavier. Reality became clearer. I had to ask myself a serious question. Can I continue like this? Doing community work without financial stability is challenging. Trying to build something while having a child to provide for. There was a moment I almost stopped everything. I felt overwhelmed. Like everything was coming down at once. Work. Responsibility. Survival. It felt like I had reached my limit. I thought about walking away.
Getting a stable job. Leaving the struggle behind. But something happened. An opportunity came at the right time. A project. A chance to continue. It forced me to rethink my decision. And I made a choice. I would not stop. I would adjust. I would push forward. Because I realized something. This work was not only about me anymore. It was about every young person depending on that space. It was about my daughter. It was about proving that purpose does not stop when life gets harder. It becomes stronger. That moment did not break me. It refined me.