“I came to live in Dar es Salaam two years ago following years of suffering. I lost my father at the age of 9. Unfortunately things turned for the worse when mother was hurt by a stick on her leg while she was working in the garden,” she explains.
Her mother was taken to hospital and it has been four years since and she is yet to recover.
After the accident, at that tender age Nuru was forced to become the family’s bread winner.
“I had to work at the farms so that I could get money to buy food for mother and the rest of the children, it was tough but I manage somehow. Sometimes I would go and work on peoples farms and they would refuse to pay the agreed amount . Because I was young, I couldn’t do anything.” says Nuru.
When the tregedy struck at first they lived with their aunt who after sometime also got tired of them.
“She had a change of heart and wanted us to move out of her house saying that she could no longer afford to provide shelter and food to people who were always sick,” she says. They had to find an alternative, it was one that took them to Gairo, Morogoro where they had a relative who was blind with her four children.
“She offered us a place to stay but because of her condition and the fact that she was poor it was hard for her to support all of us,” explains Nuru.
With no food to eat Nuru and her brothers were forced to walk around Gairo town begging for food, and sometimes scavenging for food in the dust bins. On some lucky days they would get cash enough to go to a milling store .After years of misery Nuru came to Dar es Salaam under the care of woman who owns an organisation which supports vul
nerable girls so that she can have an opportunity to go to school.
“I was happy especially when I heard that I was to go to school because since I was born never had I set foot in a classroom let alone writing my own name correctly. Everything was new to me, at the age of 12 was when I learned how to count numbers, read and write the alphabets.”
After few months of practicing and training she was enrolled for MEMKWA classes.
she passed the examination at MEMKWA classes and in 2015 she was enrolled in Standard Four and with the determination she did well in the National Standard Four exams. “I was happy because someone from the US who is a friend of my guardian offered to pay for my school fees, I was therefore enrolled at Macedonia English Medium School and now I am in Grade Five, I never imagine that one day I would go to an English medium school and have a decent place to stay.”
These have been two years of great experience and according to her it is something she never expected.
“I wish to see every child gets an opportunity to go to school especially those who are coming from poor families.”
She calls upon those blessed with some wealth to lend a helping hand to those who are less fortunate to take their children to school because by doing that they will help dreams of many young girls and boys coming true.
