The World Starts With Me (WSWM) has helped us as students to know about our rights e.g.

• The Right to equal education for both girls and boys.
• The Right to enjoy happy moments together e.g. in the playing field
• Right to know our body changes and to be healthy.
• Right to health care.

As students, we were told to demand our rights in a peaceful way e.g. for the Right to education, we should not demand to be in an expensive school which your parent/guardian or sponsor cannot manage. You should demand to be in a school which those paying for your fees can afford.

We were also told that rights go hand in hand with responsibilities. It is our right to be in school but it is our responsibility to read books, follow school rules and regulations and to help our parents raise the school fees.

I had a friend who got married at the age of 17 years and separated after one year with the husband because the husband and his family lost patience as she was not able to conceive. This was because she aborted at 15 years and got complications.

She again got involved after one year with another married man who claimed he wanted her to be his legal second wife. My friend and the man got on well for some three months. The man offered to get her a house and paid her rent and that is where she lived for one year.

One time she told her man about her ex-husband and how she was processing a divorce. At first the man seemed understanding but after two weeks, the man started avoiding her and stopped paying her rent. He also completely cut off communication. The girls finds a problem in paying rent because her very low income.

Despite the fact that the man has avoided her, she still loves the man. She is hiding her pain and no one is there to help her. She regrets the decision she made to abort.
I advise my fellow girls, I case you get pregnant never think of abortion. Face and apologize to your parents, it may be difficult at first. After deliver, ask for forgiveness and ask your parents to take you back to school so that you can purse you future dreams.

There was this teacher who was our neighbour. He was very friendly, he loved kids so much. He would give kids sweets, biscuits but he would give me much more things than others.

He would sometimes send me to his house to help him with his work like sweeping his room. I was such an innocent girl of about 10 years.
One day he gave me so much money that even my mother asked me where I had got the money from. I lied to my mother that my uncle had given me the money. The following day, he bought for me gifts like shoes and sweets. I was so excited that I even told my friends about it. Some of my friends were so jealousy to the extent of reporting me to my mother. She was so angry with me that she even beat me and warned me never to interact or even go to the teacher’s home. But I never listened,

It was one day late in the evening, my parents, brothers and sisters were not at home. I decided to go and play near the teacher’s home. He was inside and the door was open. He called me and asked me to enter his house.

“Mummy refused me from entering your house” I said
“Okay, I will find you behind my house” he replied.

He knew people could not go behind his house. I was somehow scared but because I loved gifts so much, I decided to go behind his house. In no time, he had arrived.
He smiled to me and asked me whether I had money where I studied and many other questions. He also asked me whether my parents were at home.

“They are all away” I replied in a very excited and load voice.
“Don’t talk so loudly. I don’t want people to hear. This is between you and me“ he added.

He started touching on my breasts. I become so nervous but then he was a good friend who gives gifts to other people.

“Do you feel good” he asked me.
“What are you doing?” I shouted in a shivering voice.
“No! No! Don’t fear I am not going to harm you. I will give you more money if you want” he said

“Julius, , Mr Julius….” Someone called loudly.
“Yes I am here” the teacher replied

I ran away very fast up to home. I was so scared that I even started crying. Fortunately my father was already at home.

“What is wrong?” my father asked angrily.

He became so furious that he wanted to go and fight the teacher but the teacher had already run away from the village.
The experience taught me never again to accept gifts from anybody because there are no free gifts.

In my Primary Seven in 2009, I was the class captain. Many girls in the class were against me because I used to write their names under noise markers whenever they would make noise in class. Because I used to sit among boys, some of them would even report me to the Senior Woman teacher that I was seriously in love with the boys.
There was this girl in class who was my friend. Her mother used to sell cooked food in a nearby market. The girl was in sexual relationships with boys and wanted to initiate me in love affairs with boys.

One day after night prep at school, we moved to her mothers’ place in the market as we moved home. My other friends whom I used to move with on my way home left me behind.

After sometime, I realized that it was too dark for me to move alone as my home was quite far from the market. I asked the girl to escort me back home but she refused claiming that she had to attend to her mother’s customers who came to buy food.

Though I feared to move alone in the dark, I got courage to go home as I had no other option. I don’t know whether she had planned this with her friends who were boys but when I reached someway around the bush, a boy tried to rape me. I nearly fainted but I had to fight for myself. I screamed, fought and over powered the boy and ran away. Thank God, I was not raped.

From that day, I learnt never to over trust friends and never to move alone at night. Let’s have friends but let’s first look at ourselves.

One of our challenges as students is to complete studies and not disappoint teachers and parents by messing up. You should not get involved in risky behavior that can lead to school dropout. It is good always aim higher but if you fail, there is still a lot you can do in life.

Have a dream. Believe that your dream will happen. Think BIG. Take action. Don’t sit back and wait for things to happen to you.
Do all what you can to make you stay in school. In case you drop out of school, do all what you can to get back. Work hard. Avoid sexual relationships. Say NO to sex, alcohol, drugs and other risky behaviours.

Be focused and aggressive for the right thing and have faith. You will succeed if you consider all the above.

The “World Starts With Me”  and indeed it started with me. I always felt not myself and too inferior amidst my friends and classmates at home and at school respectively.
People especially the boys always made fun of me calling me with all sorts of names, because of my physical appearance. Because of my small body, they nicknamed me and always said I am aged. All I could do was cry to myself because I felt so shy to share what I was feeling with anyone.

But the “World Starts With Me” helped me to get out of this agony. I was one of the students who answered the WSWM evaluation questionnaire in 2008 in Rock High school. Our school was a control school since we did not the WSWM at the school by then. The questions really gave me courage to build a strong feeling and love for myself and I joined the WSWM club when it was introduced at our school in 2009.

From that time up to date, at least I feel very free and confortable with myself and amidst my friends as I ignore all the fun people say about me. I take it as normal and I am always myself. For this, I thank the founders of the WSWM for picking me out of a “deep hole” and giving me back myself.