The Girls Are So Excited For School!

Remember when you were in elementary school, filled with the excitement of starting a new year? You have carefully selected a new backpack and the coolest lunchbox around to tote to your first day proudly. Your pencil bag is filled with freshly sharpened pencils, colored pencils, and markers and smells like the brand-new box of unused crayons tucked carefully inside. You can’t wait to see how your new teacher has decorated her classroom and which friends you will be seated by. You looked forward to a day filled with computer lab, PE, Art, and recess, as well as your lunch break to laugh with friends and trade snacks. 

Now imagine being the same age, but instead of anticipating a fun year, you are filled with anxiety about what your day may hold. Instead of attending school, you are expected to sell items on busy, unfamiliar streets to support your family. The possibility of being robbed is heavy on your mind as not only will you lose your goods or money, but you will endure a brutal beating for your failure. You feel alone and lost with no one to come looking for you. While you constantly scan the faces of strangers passing by, you try to analyze as best as a child can if they look trusting and kind or intend you harm. Your stomach rumbles to remind you that your last meal was yesterday, and today’s meal is not guaranteed. Your life feels completely unsettled, unpredictable, and hopeless. 

While this is an everyday reality for many girls in Sierra Leone, we praise God for allowing us to intervene in the lives of these vulnerable girls. As the school new year kicks off, these girls have the assurance of school, safe rides to and from the school,  lunch in the middle of their school day, and proper clothes and shoes in which to attend. They have a backpack with the necessary supplies to succeed during their day. Thank you for your generosity and support. Because of you, these girls can feel safe and have the opportunity to simply be children.