STORIES FROM PEOPLE-OLIVIA

Dear readers,

Today I want you to start meeting some of the students from the “Hairdressing and Tailoring” group, I want you to hear their stories, to discover their personalities and their dreams. I want you to understand and to see, as it happened to me when I met them, their deep and strong motivation, they determination, although all the problems and difficulties they have faced.

Today I want you to finally give a name and a face to some students you may have heard talking about, starting from, Olivia, the first girl I met when I first arrived at the office.

Monday 9th of September has been my first day at the office, here in Nebbi. Everything was new for me, I didn’t know anyone from the local staff. I didn’t even know where I could sit, which desk I could use, where was the bathroom; you know, the first days in a new place are the ones to get used to the place and to the people, are the ones needed for adaption. You have to understand how things work, where to find what you need, how to even move around; first days you are even scared of moving to much on the chair, of drinking water or asking for help. You don’t want to attract attention or to seem totally lost or confused. But everyone has his/her own first days, so it is totally normal.

But I had luck, because on my first day here at the office, I met Olivia. Olivia is one of the students from the Hairdressing and tailoring course, and as I then discovered, she is the one who always arrive early, before the beginning of the lessons. She is the one that whenever I arrive at the office in the morning, she is already seated under the patio, either working on some hairstyles or writing down some notes. On my first day she was already there, seated outside on one of the blue plastic chair, chatting with two other students, Karen and Fortunate. They were all three really concentrated in their work, brushing and detangling the knots in the hair of the plastic head used for the practical lessons, in order to prepare it for the morning and start patiently a new one. I remember thinking that I could never be able to maintain my patience every day, doing and redoing hundred of time the same exercise and hairstyle until the perfection; but I also know it is fundamental to keep practising to reach the best outcome.

Interested and curious to see better, I approached them, introducing myself and showing my sincere admiration for their work; they all smiled at me, being really nice, and making me feel comfortable, despite the new environment. I so found more confidence and I started asking them about their lives and plans for the future after the graduation.

Olivia was the most talkative between the three. She is 21 years old and she is already a mom; she has had her first and only child, a little girl, when she was 17 years old. At that time she was studying Senior 4th grade, and she was working really hard to learn and reach very good performance. She was dreaming to study at Kampala University, and to become an engineer; she was really good in math and the scientific subjects were her favourite. Everything was planned and set in her mind, she knew what she wanted to arrive and how to reach her goal. While she talks I can see her dream still in her eyes; she hasn’t forgotten it of course, but she had to change and adapt as well. With a little daughter under her responsibility, she had to leave school, to save money and start working; being a mom means dedication and also sacrifice, even if the mom is just 17 years old.

As soon as her daughter wasn’t anymore in need of breastfeeding, Olivia went to Kampala to work; there there are more opportunities for finding a job and the salaries are also higher than in a small village as Nebbi. She left her daughter with her parents and sisters, although it wasn’t an easy decision; she knew she was leaving for a good cause but at the same time she was fearing careless; decision like that are never easy.

She has stayed in Kampala for three years, working as an hotel receptionist, until the time to come back home arrived; her daughter needed her mother and Olivia’s family needed her as well back in the village. So she came back, without any plan and without a job again.

And this is the moment when she got in touch with EMOTER’s Hairdressing Course and Skills Development Academy; this course was the opportunity she was looking for, it was another second chance to start and build a new future. So she filled the form required and she got selected, starting the course with other girls.

Now every week, from morning to Friday, she comes here at the office, she sits outside, and she starts knotting and brushing heads, creating amazing hairstyles, putting all her efforts in taking the most from this practical lessons. And when it is the time and day for the theoretical class from skills Development Academy, she is here with her little paper book and a pen, taking notes, asking questions, listening carefully to the teacher.

Her new plan B dream now, is to graduate from this course, and then maybe move to Kampala with her daughter, find a job there as hairdresser, and in few years, when she has enough money, she will open her own Saloon. I totally see her in the clothes of a manager of a big beautiful saloon, with some employers, in a good district of Kampala, while her daughter, in the meantime grown up, coming back from school to say “hello” to her mother after the lessons.

Yes, because Olivia wants her daughter to study and to finish school, to have the chance to follow the path she wants and to achieve her dreams and goals; she wants for her daughter and better life, with freedom and happiness.

EMOTER’s course has been her salvation, her hope in a though moment. Her second chance.