Revona’s Story

AquAid Lifeline are planning to open the brand new girl’s hostel, close to our secondary school at Namaritha, Zomba region, later this year. Here is the story of one of the girls hoping to become a resident.

My name is Revona and I am 14 years old.  I live at Kasambwe village, some 4.5 kilometers away from Umodzi Community Day Secondary School where I stay with my grandmother. The picture at the top shows me and my grandmother on the veranda of our grass thatched house. Since my grandmother became blind, my life has changed as she needs someone to help her with a lot of things like cooking, drawing water, maize planting and all the work in the garden.  Most of the time me and my grandmother are not able to harvest enough food and I sometimes go to school hungry.   Her other children are married and live very far from our village, which means I am the only hope for her.

I really enjoyed Primary School and I was happy because life was good.  It was a sad shock to me when my father passed away when I was a baby.  After a while, my mother remarried but her new husband didn’t want to take care of me and I was forced to become head of the family and look after my grandmother.

I am very excited to hear about the girl’s hostel and I hope that I will be lucky to be chosen to live there because I would be able to focus more on my studies as I will be relieved of my responsibilities at home. To have enough food to eat every day is also a dream.

Despite all the challenges that I go through every day, I work hard at school trying to squeeze myself into the top five list hoping to change my story.  I am now in Form 2 and I am one of the youngest in our class.  Being young in the class doesn’t make me feel nervous but it rather gives me courage and I am always ready to take on every question that our teacher asks. Sometimes my fellow students make fun of me saying it never makes a difference whether I am standing or sitting due to my height!