My name is Lightness Daniel Isojick and I am here to tell my story.
I was born into a family of three children raised by a single mother. My parents separated when I was six years old. Our mother was a cleaner at Karatu Lutheran Hospital, the conflict between her and our father escalated and it led her to lose her janitorial job. She left Karatu and went to Arusha town and started working for her brother who owned a dispensary. She worked there as a nurse assistant.
While she was settling well in town we were left with our maternal grandparents. Our grandmother was always away attending religious seminars and our grandfather was sent to jail. We lived a very tough life doing all the domestic chores like fetching water 5 to 7 km away from the village, looking after the cows, and cooking just to mention a few. We spend most of our time working-there was no time to study. We were assaulted and violated by our uncles something which we never talked about as it could tear apart the family. Growing up in that situation we could not read or write by the age of ten years.
One day I was beaten by my uncle, I was in pain, and I could not breathe properly, this had been happening for a long time and that day I thought that it should be the end of it all. I went to our neighbor who owned a landline telephone and reported the matter; asking her to call our mother and tell her what had happened.
That phone call made our mother decide it was about time to come and pick us up so we can live with her in Arusha. Having been fired by the hospital without any valid reason our mother sued the hospital. Our mother won the case and she was compensated. Her victory gave her a good life in town; therefore, she opened her little medical store and served the Maasai people in our village at Kisongo Arusha. Her story of triumph never ended there she insisted that we should try our best at school. She supervised our homework, when she could not do it she hired a private tutor to teach us at home after school. We quickly learned how to read count and write within a very short time.
When we completed primary education, our mother decided to send us to Kenya because she believes the education system was better there than in Tanzania, something which I quite agree with her. If I were a single mom today and I have a 100% mandate to decide where my child should study, I would send my children to Kenya.
Our mother’s courage to send a child to another country was unimaginable, she knew she would struggle to pay fees but that did not stop her. Living with our mother was great but I missed one thing I missed my father, I never understood why they separated so I started to talk to my mother so she can let him come and join us. By then our father was sick and homeless, our mother agreed so he moved in. Our Mother look after him, she was paying his hospital bills so she could not pay our school fees in time. We were regularly thrown out of school so we can go back home to collect the remaining amount of money she was owing the school.
Our father regained his health so they started fighting again. Our father would beat her in our presence. The village headman decided that it was time for him to go and leave her alone.
You must be wondering why I am telling this sad story on this page…
Everything that I went through has shaped me to be who I am today.
But who am I?
I am a mother of four girls, a passionate teacher, and a founder of the Jifunzekufundisha program. I believe that every child needs a good teacher to inspire him/her and I decided not only to be that teacher, but I will be a teacher who would inspire other teachers to be what a child needs at school. A teacher that a child can learn from, lean on, and can freely tell them what is happening to them outside the school. A teacher who is compassionate enough to listen to a child and safeguard their safety.
I am currently hired as a year five class teacher at Black Rhino International School in Karatu. Once I learned that there is an international school in Karatu I immediately thought that it is now time to go back home so I can have time to catch up with my father and develop something at my place of birth and which is Karatu Literacy and Language Learning Center. As I said before when I was growing up in Karatu I could not read until I was ten years old. I believe that I am not the only child who went through what I went through, there are many other children who are still going through it right now. So, I believe that Karatu Literacy Center is not only going to give a child a book but also a reading buddy who would guide them through their literacy journey. Just like my mother, I believe that our stories can only change for the better if we decide to do something about it.
For more information about jifunzekufundisha follow the link to jifunzekufundisha website.
https://sites.google.com/view/jifunzekufundisha/home [jifunzekufundisha@gmail.com] | [Karatu Tanzania] | phone number [+255746927835]
About me
