Teacher on Two Wheels

**Below is a post I just wrote for work.  It appears on Invisible Children’s blog.  It’s about an incredibly inspiring beneficiary of ours named Innocent.  Multiple times, Innocent stepped back from the brink of an uncertain future and managed to continue pursuing his dreams.  Unlike many students living in the US and other areas smoothed by privilege,  Innocent never had the luxury of taking his education for granted.  During the years he commuted each night to sleep in a safe town center, he fought through exhaustion and anxiety to keep education a priority.  He came close to leaving school many times, and because of this, he now values his education.  For him, knowledge is a lifeline.  Taking school for granted is unimaginable.**

Innocent

19-years-old

Busoga College, Jinja

The younger kids were too small to jump across the ravine.  Afternoon rains had turned it into a turbulent moat separating them from their destination:  a large building that would provide shelter to hundreds of children for the night.  Innocent, barely 12-years-old at the time, said he did what anyone would do-he leant his hand.

One by one, children crossed the stream with his help.  When time came to distribute blankets and organize kids for the night, he and some of the other older boys helped orchestrate things.  Months rolled by, and night after night Innocent helped tired kids get settled in for sleep.  The one adult overseeing the place eventually decided that electing a head boy from the scores of night commuting kids would help things run more smoothly.  One night, he ordered seven or eight boys to stand in front of the rest; Innocent was called forward.

“The man told all of the children to stand behind the boy they wanted to represent them as head boy,” Innocent recounted.

In small groups, kids stood and slowly made their way over to Innocent.  Seconds later, a long line of children snaked away from him, raising the hair on the back of his neck in disbelief.  This single event, this response from hundreds of kids Innocent barely knew, pushed him down a new life path, one lined with opportunity.

*****

When the filmmakers showed up at the night commuting site, they couldn’t speak to everyone–there were simply too many kids.  The head boy was called forward.  Innocent welcomed them and told them about his experiences night commuting.  His composure–a type of calm that fuses easy smiles with an intense gaze–made an impression on the filmmakers.  After IC formed and became an organization, when it was looking for its first scholarship beneficiaries, Innocent was called in for an interview.  He found out he’d been awarded a full-tuition scholarship just as his family, broke and unable to pay his school fees, was contemplating pulling him from school.

Now, years later, Innocent is poised to start a Civil Engineering degree at university.  Running his own engineering business, he tells me, will allow him to pursue a parallel career in politics.

To understand how Innocent transitioned from a life exhausted by years of night commuting (he used to walk hours a day just so he could sleep safely at night) to one energized by the prospect of dual careers, one need not look further than the way Innocent spent his most recent school vacation:

In a single month, he molded and baked 13,000 bricks.  Yes, 13,000.  At a selling price of 80 shillings each, the bricks earned him hundreds of thousands of shillings.  Innocent used this money to buy five piglets at a price of 30,000 shillings each.  In a year’s time, he’ll be able to sell the males for 120,000 shillings and the females for 100,000 shillings.  Selling a few of his mature pigs will allow him to buy a dairy cow.  And on it goes.

Innocent did well with his recent final exams.  He’s eager to start university, though, and told me that the August start date for classes couldn’t come soon enough.  Although being home in Gulu allows him to see his friends, Innocent has had little time to relax because he needs to help his mother tend the family’s maize and cassava crops.  The oldest of five children, he juggles his studies with his responsibilities at home.  Much of what he made selling bricks went to his mother to help pay for things for their house.  This role–both full-time son and acting father–is not one Innocent takes lightly; when he stays up late studying, he does it because he knows his success is not just his own, not without effects on others.  So, then, it was rewarding when Innocent first heard his mother cite his work ethic when advising her children.

“She told them, ‘You need to be like Innocent.  Look how he studies.’  It was so great to hear her say this,” Innocent said, bashful.

I asked him about his interest in civil engineering.  Innocent told me about another lucky break he caught:  Patrick Munduga, IC Uganda’s Program Manager for Schools for Schools, met and befriended Innocent and, after some time, began mentoring him. [Innocent, like all of IC's scholarship beneficiaries, receives official mentoring from a trained IC mentor.  Patrick is supplementing this official mentoring with his own advice and guidance.]  This relationship has bloomed and fueled Innocent’s interest in engineering; Patrick has shown Innocent how engineering can be used to help people in need.  But Patrick’s engineering work isn’t the only thing Innocent admires about the man:  Patrick, ever positive, is respected by his peers and carries himself with confidence both in and outside of IC’s office.  In short, Innocent sees in Patrick the type of man he wants to be.

*****

Money is easier to squeeze from a city than a village.  Innocent, if he chose to, could stay in Kampala after graduation and make heaps of money at a large engineering firm.  I wasn’t surprised when he explained that this option wasn’t a feasible one for him.

“My services aren’t needed in Kampala,” Innocent said frankly.  “In the north we need renovations.  The people here need my help.  I want to do a lot for my community, because I have the opportunity to help.  Honestly, seeing how the filmmakers have helped us, it makes me think, If foreigners can travel so far to help the Acholi, why can’t I help, too?“

Listening to Innocent, I couldn’t help but be awed by him.  Overcoming incredible odds to shed adversity, to push on, and then emerge into a new chapter of life with an unyielding optimism takes a strong, unique individual.  I asked Innocent why he was so confident everything will work out for him.  He grinned and, with total sincerity, dropped a nugget of wisdom.

“Determination,” he explained, “makes your future.”

Gulu, in a few short years, is going to be a better place because Innocent has proven this truth to himself.