I was forced to drop out of school when I became pregnant at 17. I feared for my future as a single mother without education. But I was fortunate: Camfed supported me to return to school, and then on to business training after graduation. Upon returning to my village, I began selling baked goods, and I was able to earn money to support my child. But I was distraught at the situation in my village. Many young children were out of school. I wondered how these children were going to make it without an education.

I decided to take it upon myself to teach them.

My preschool began under a tree with 50 students. Within a few weeks, word had spread to families throughout the village, and I was teaching 128 children ages 4-7. Seeing the value of this school, the village chief gave me a four-acre plot of land and asked me to develop it into a proper school. The whole community came together to help build the school. A group of Camfed alumni pooled their money to donate school supplies such as chalk and pencils.

Today the school serves 150 rural children who would otherwise have no access to education. Starting the school opened a new window in my life. I went from being deserted and ashamed to making a profound difference in children’s lives.

When I started my magazine, The Marketer, no one had heard of a young rural woman doing such a thing. But I saw an opportunity: rural entrepreneurs traveling to the city to do business had no access to information on business services, and it put them at a disadvantage. The Marketer connects rural entrepreneurs to the resources they need, and it builds clientele for urban businesses.

At every step, I faced challenges. No bank would give me a loan because I didn’t have any savings. Many people discouraged me. “Such a complicated business!” they would say. “Why don’t you just do buying and selling?” I persisted because I wanted to prove them wrong. I wanted to show the world that a young rural woman can accomplish something big.

In the two years since I launched the magazine, I have made almost 900 sales calls – and my hard work is paying off. I have published four issues, and I have created three jobs! I employ a designer, a marketing officer, and a production manager.

I train young rural women in entrepreneurship, and I always tell them, “When you have a hard time, you must learn to wake up the next day and shake off the dust. I promise you, if you know where you want to go, you will get there.”

My father passed away when I was ten, and my mother was forced to leave me with my auntie to find work in another village. Losing my father when I was so young gave me the heart to pursue a career as a doctor. There are many people in the rural area where I come from who die needlessly, because they lack information and basic resources. As a rural girl, my passion is to reach those who can’t reach you.

I believe that prevention is the best form of medicine. When I graduate from medical school, I want to work in public health, in the rural area where I grew up. Simply by teaching people about their health, I’ll be able to save thousands of lives.

My father passed away when I was 12 years old, and I had many sleepless nights worrying that I would have to drop out of school like my sisters, who got married very young. But Camfed supported me as a bursary student, and after secondary school, I was trained in IT. Learning IT was a turning point in my life. It gave me the skills to lead my community toward a brighter future.

I work as the manager of one of the first I.T centers in the rural district of Samfya, where I have introduced thousands of people to computers for the first time. With the skills I teach my fellow community members, they are able to search for jobs and business opportunities and conduct research. IT is such a vital tool for connecting, and I want to make sure that my community is not cut off from opportunity.

I’m now in school studying environmental health, and I plan to use IT to disseminate critical information about disease threats in a timely fashion. It makes me very happy to be able to give back to my community by empowering them with the knowledge I have acquired.