Goretty Nabwire ’29
Hometown
Njeru Municipality, Buikwe, Uganda
Academic Interest
International Studies
Silence. Bewilderment. You could hear the faintest whisper in the auditorium. With a tranquil tone, Mr. Acha Leke, a co-founder of the African Leadership Academy, repeated these words, giving them time to sink into our minds. “Does it REALLY matter to the world that you exist?” In a fleeting moment of an internal conflict, I hesitantly whispered an inaudible “yes,” a fumed response that faded away, disappearing into the atmosphere almost as quickly as it came into my mind. I knew I mattered. But did I matter to the world?
Pondering this question further, I am taken back to Buziika, a small village where I was born and raised. Walking out of my house door every day to go to school, I was coldly greeted by my two friends who sat on their verandas, wondering if they would ever get the opportunity to go to school. With this, I carried a heavy heart to my classes, and at the sound of the last school bell, I rushed back home to meet my friends. I taught them all the new songs I had learnt at school and plucked papers from my book, on which they would also attempt my homework.
This childhood experience informed me of my interest in transferring knowledge to my community. I did not only teach my neighbours’ kids but also became a tutor to my two young sisters, offering them revision lessons after every dinner meal. When the tragic wave of COVID-19 hit Uganda, our schools closed for almost two years, wreaking havoc on our education systems and drastically interrupting the harmony in my community. An overwhelming number of early pregnancies emerged in my neighbourhood, leaving two of my classmates impregnated by uneducated boys who could barely afford two meals a day. I was disturbed by the probable catastrophic recurrence of poverty in my community.
In February 2021, I started “Great Girls Home Lessons,” which engaged 17 grade nine girls in academics during the pandemic season. I provided free tutoring sessions at my house, where we spent three hours of each late afternoon immersed in our studies. I once again felt connected to my local community, after having been sent to boarding school the moment I joined high school.
In an attempt to answer Mr. Acha’s question, I am positive that my existence might not restore peace in the world or even end corruption in Uganda. However, I believe that my small contributions to my community have the power to transform people’s lives. My existence mattered to my childhood friends with whom I shared my primary school lessons and the 17 girls who returned to their schools ready to study after the COVID-19 pandemic. My world is the person in my reach whose life I have the ability and resources to help. Once I fulfil my human obligation to such people, it then matters to the world that I exist.