Taking a Bold step
If you have read some of my previous blogs, you must now be familiar with my favorite quote. “A journey of a thousand steps begins with a single step.” — Lao Tzu
This has been more of a guiding quote that has guided me on my path to achieving my childhood dream.
Tonight I am writing this blog to share my experience of how I managed to get to the university of my dreams.
Early last year I applied to one of the most prestigious universities on the continent: The African Leadership University — Rwanda. I was lucky that I got the admission to join my fellow young African Leaders who are students at the same university. Unfortunately, I wasn’t lucky enough to get a full scholarship and this set a huge blockage on this journey. Mainly because I knew my mom couldn’t afford to send me to university.
I decided to not give up on my dream, I reached out to my friends and mentors who in turn became the rock that I stood firm with the hope of crowdfunding the monies i.e. $15,000 that I need to attend school. A contribution of $2500 from one of my mentors(Solomon King) who I consider to be a second father to me, birthed a ray of hope and confidence that I was to overcome this and I will be able to fundraise this money or at least half of it for the first year to get me started.
I reached out to a friend who stays in the US and he help me set up a Go Fund Me page in February 2022, we started the fundraising journey. With Solomon King’s support, by March we had raised over $2,000 and my fundraising campaign had become popular across different social media platforms like Twitter where many people retweeted it. By the end of March, we had raised $4,420. Wow, I run out of words, at first I did not believe that this would even be possible. People generously contributed their hard-earned money in the middle of a pandemic that had messed up almost everyone’s income and some had even lost their jobs, but still, they were generous enough to contribute to my education. I will forever be grateful for this, there is no word that I can use to describe how grateful my mom, friends, and I are.
By April, we had raised a total of $6940 inclusive of a contribution from Solomon King. I went ahead to pay for my tuition and other costs for the first year. And on the 13th of May, I hugged my mom goodbye as I flew to Kigali to start my journey of a thousand miles. Today the 16th of May, I started my first class making me the first-generation college student in my family. Most importantly I have embarked on my journey of revitalizing the health care sector of Africa.
Special thanks to everyone that has been a part of this journey, people who have shared my fundraising campaign, generously contributed to the campaign, and those who called me to encourage and just to pray for me. I am eternally grateful.
Onwards_ Upwards.
