I am Alick Phiri, born in 1998. I am the last born in the family of eight. My father is Chewe by tribe from Sinda district of Chief Kawaza in the Eastern province of Zambia, and my mother is Kaonde by tribe, from Chief Musele in Kalumbila District in the North Western Province of Zambia. My parents spent their lifetime as small-scale famers in production of maize and cotton.
As the parable says, ‘madzi yakonkha mfolo’; water follows the stream. A child will be interested to do what their parents or community do. As such, none of my elder siblings appreciated the value of education while parents had still energy to gather resources.
Despite government primary schools being free when I started school, life was hard as my parents were aging and found it difficult to raise money for soap, uniform and shoes. I walked seven km to school, and I only had a shirt for uniform and no shoes. During the rainy season I carried my clothing in a plastic bag, as I had no umbrella. I had no dream of completing school and no vision about why I was going to school because there was no example of an educated person in the community I lived in. I was just sent to go to school.
Alick’s family home
In 2013, life become complicated after the passing of my father. Everything became sour. Now I was in secondary school, my mother could not manage to pay the 190 kwacha school fees per term. To carry on, I did piecework at a teacher’s farm who then paid my fees. The next year I passed my grade 9 exams; but still, no direction.
There was no money to pay the school fees and buy uniform and books to progress to grade 10; but my uncle managed to support me to continue school while he could work at the farm of one of the teachers so he could pay my fees. However, misfortune kept following me. Soon, my uncle lost his wife, the family was scattered, and my hope diminished. I did not feel sad when I was told that I would not continue school. It felt normal, because I had no dream for the future and there was no one to encourage me. We revered teachers and nurses as people who came from the town; us from the village, we knew we could not reach that level.
Good news came with a scholarship opportunity to Sentinel Kalumbila school, which I was awarded. It was not easy to teach a person like me; when I arrived I had never for example touched or switched on a computer. My teachers taught me many things; my mentor taught me chess, the game of planning and problem solving. I learned how to think and make thoughtful decisions. My headteacher taught me English, and beyond the duty of being my teacher, I took her as my guardian. Her duty did not end after I left the school, but she made sure that I obtained a full scholarship to go to university to study medicine and surgery. The care I received from Sentinel Kalumbila school teachers was extraordinary.
“The care I received from Sentinel Kalumbila school teachers was extraordinary.”
On moving to Sentinel, I remained with a lot of questions which until now I don’t have the answers to. Shifting from Jiundu secondary school to Sentinel Kalumbila school was a great change for me psychologically. I completed my schooling without knowing the price of a uniform, books, pens, and any other school requirements. My deep heartfelt appreciation was knowing that someone was paying the bills. I did not take the scholarship for granted at an organisational level, but as a collective individual effort with an agenda to help vulnerable people. I became one of the quietest students due to a deep understanding that people were leaving their homes and families and going to work just to make sure that I went to school and acquired a high quality education. I spent much of my time thinking how my life could be.
During my time at Sentinel I was exposed to a lot of activities aside from academics, including conservation farming. The school invited a team of agricultural experts who specialise in conservation farming. I was very delighted after seeing my fellow farmers therefore I thought of studying Agricultural Science (my first dream). The school invited different experts and entrepreneurs, and talks from different professional fields helped me to understand that there were lot of things I could do beyond farming.
We had many school trips, we visited different places. Among all the trips, one which left me puzzled and intrigued was visiting the mine plant. After seeing the plant, I was puzzled; I failed to believe that it is within human capacity to know which part should be put at particular position when constructing the plant – it looked as if it was created! That visit made me understand that education has the power to enhance human capacity.
The dream to be a doctor was planted in me after spending time at the local hospital for work experience during grade 11. The opportunity I was given to interact with health practitioners for a week gave me a passion to study medicine. I highly appreciate people who are working hard to help others.
To show appreciation, my mission is always to study extra hard to score good grades. I am one of the top students, So far, I have been awarded a bachelor’s degree in human biology. I am in my fifth year proceeding with medicine and surgery.
