Susan’s dream takes off

Every day planes land and take off from Kamuzu International Airport, the boundary between Dowa District and Malawi’s capital city, Lilongwe.

For young people in the vicinity, the departures and arrivals inspire lofty hopes and dreams.

From their predominantly grass-thatched homes surrounding the airport, the girls and boys visualise themselves taking those flights beyond the skies over the vast plain.

Some rise to take those planes as doctors, lawyers or engineers, while others fly them as pilots or aeronautical engineers.

However, it is not every day such dreams take off. Most of them crash to the ground or burn midair due to poverty.

For Susan Kawinga, 11, the fear of failure constantly motivates her to work harder.

The girl with mobility challenges has just been selected to Madisi Secondary School from Chibvala Primary School in Lumbadzi.

However, her success in the newly released Primary School Leaving Certificate of Education (PSLCE) examination results left parents, teachers and the community stunned.

The girl was raised by a single mother since birth after her father abandoned the family to escape “the burden of raising a child with a disability.

With the odds stacked against her, Susan grew into an excellent student. In fact, she sat the nationwide examination in Standard 7, a class before she was supposed to do so, since her performance in class was beyond her age.

As she was outscoring everyone in the school, her mother Angella Kaunda and community members asked teachers and the school management committee to allow the girl to sit the exams a year earlier.

Susan didn’t let them down. Just like the jets in the skies of Lumbadzi, she soared until she was selected to the district’s best secondary school.

However, the euphoria of her selection did not last as her mother cannot afford school fees worth about K85 000 per term.

Aside from that, she  will also require a school uniform, shoes, beddings, textbooks, toiletries, upkeep allowance and transport.

As the girl’s blessing risked turning into a curse, Kaunda had to have a candid, make-or-break talk with Susan. This is a common experience for children with crashed dreams in her hometown.

Susan was at risk of waving goodbye to her dreams of going to secondary school. After all, she is still young and eligible to re-sit PSLCE examinations.

Just as her mother explored ways to break the bad news to her daughter, the community that had collectively pushed the school committee to let her sit for examinations a year earlier rallied together yet again.

Harnessing the power of the social media, they sent out a cry of help for Susan. The SOS sent to everyone they knew and whoever it may concern personifies the community’s refusal to allow the story of Susan’s excellence to become yet another tale of shattered dreams.

The community’s rallying cry moved their member of Parliament Halima Daud, the Deputy Minister of Local Government.

From her pocket, the lawmaker has paid for Susan’s fees in full and bought groceries, beddings, a suitcase and a uniform. She has also put Susan on a bursary until she completes secondary school.

“I saw myself in Susan’s story,” she says.

The lawmaker grew up in the shadows of the country’s largest airport, where she repeatedly encountered the frustration of being close to the gateway to the world yet so far away.

“It’s a familiar story of hopes and dreams that need the support of everyone to really come true,” says Daud.

She urges Malawians within and beyond her constituency to give a hand so that every child can learn.

“Each one [must] reach one,” Daud says. “What’s the use of getting all the inspiration you need and failing to cross over to achieve your dreams because of financial burdens?”

She reckons success should not be a curse or weight on the backs of children, parents and their communities.

Kaunda thanks the MP for giving her daughter an opportunity to continue with her education.

“It is my prayer that my daughter succeeds and that other girls feel motivated by her strides to continue with their education,” says the proud mother.

Susan is elated that her journey has not been terminated midair.

This week, she has enrolled at Madisi Secondary School full of optimism.

Susan states: “I am grateful for the support from our member of Parliament. I have always wanted to be a nurse and I thought my dream was not going to be realised due to financial challenges.

“Now that this has been sorted, I promise to work hard to make people that believed in me proud.”

She is, however, aware that her story mirrors the plight of many boys and girls in her locality.

Their stories, just like hers, come out every year the lists of children selected to secondary school or public university are announced.

Trapped between academic brilliance and poverty, their cries for help often drown in a cacophony false take-offs and tragic touchdowns in their journey to the top.