I did it and I loved it

So, on Saturday 10^th February, I set out for Ibiaku Community of Uruan Local Government Area of AkwaIbom State. Those who know I did my one year compulsory Youth Service in that community would rightly ask, "What on earth are you going back there to do?" Well, my answer would be, "doesn't passion make you do things you wouldn't ordinarily do?" Ever since I finished my youth service in 2015, I have visited that community every year and this is why.

with the kids when we went for the oct 1,2015 march past. they won in the govt. sch.
 category

As we drove to the village in his car that beautiful morning, my boss told us that we were going to serve in a community of kids who were quite challenged in reading and writing. I thought I grasped the situation until my first day in class when I was standing face to face with a kid in primary six who couldn't spell his name. I was alarmed and scared; scared that I wasn't ever going to be able to get across to them to really teach them because they couldn't speak English and I couldn't speak Ibibio. I then recalled what my boss said: "If you can make them to desire to read and write, I'll be very grateful." Thus, our assignment wasn't even to teach them to read and write but to inspire the desire to read and write in them.

during one of sports friday with the kids. you could actually cut away a chunk of joy from their faces

It was the most difficult thing I had done but empathy for their situation drove me on daily. These kids live very difficult lives; born to single parents, mostly teenage mothers and abandoned to their grandmothers whom they end up taking care of. Thus, you see kids who farm and sell the farm produce to care for their grandmothers. For many, school shoes and writing materials are luxuries they cannot afford.

I was employed by a kind individual from the community who built a learning center in one of the primary schools in the community and pays Corp Members to manage the center. Although teaching in the classrooms wasn't part of our job description, it became our major task because the school was very low on labor force. This was how I found myself on an exciting but very challenging one year journey of impacting these kids. We experimented with all sorts of ideas like positive reinforcements with gifts and kind words in class, free extra classes in the evening that attracted many kids from other nearby schools in the community, visiting some kids at home to know why they missed school and encouraging their parents to be more involved in their kid's education, raising money and writing materials from friends and family members during the holidays for the kids, visiting with the village head, pastors and youth leader to encourage more community participation in the children's education and so much more. Sometimes, we would attend community functions such as weddings to blend with the villagers. They would cook and give us. Some visited with us and ate in our place. Most of our ideas worked and we also encountered some really stubborn kids. Sometimes we would pray for the kids; this encouraged us when it got quite difficult.

some of the kids who did a presentation. it took a lot of work to get to look like this 

a cross-section of the competitors

At the end of our service year, we organized a school competition that brought the villagers to our school. Our children read and spelled words that amazed the crowd. We partnered with a local radio station that aired the event without charging us. Most amazing is that two girls got scholarships to secondary school level while a third got a scholarship to university level from the family of my employee.

on a visit with the recipients of our scholarship

We still go to visit the girls in the secondary school and my joy knows no bound. They practically push me down to hug me and then say, "Aunty, we are finding mathematics very difficult." I will smile and say, "take it easy, ask your fellow students to help you and talk to your teachers, you will be fine." It's not a surprise they find many subjects difficult; they’ve had a bad foundation learning foundation all of their lives until now.

the first set of Corp members I trained

Another amazing part of this story is that I compiled all those experiments into a curriculum.

teaching the kids in the learning center during one of my visits

Now, for each batch of Corp members the foundation employs, I go to train and indoctrinate them.

with the family of my employee and the employees of the foundation 

training the Corp members

And when I go, I just don't teach them, I transfer my passion to them and you can see their eyes burst with passion and fire.  I have a lot of stories to share about these kids and I will tell them as the days go by. I wrote many of my most touching blog pieces during my time with these kids; one still remains one of the most read blog articles in one of the blogs I sent them to. First, it was a job, then a passion; now, it is a career.

In all these, I have learnt a huge lesson. Whatever you have to do, do it, do it well and then love it.

Igbokwe Vivian Ijeoma

Scriptwriter87@gmail.com

Twitter/Instagram: @club7teen