Students' Personal Testimonies

Mom and Dad had a disagreement then this led to a divorce. After separating, two months later Dad married another wife. He introduced her to us and we were so happy. She was so friendly and we used to collaborate with her.  In a period of the one year, my step-mom started changing. She was rude, very cruel and started mistreating us.

We used to complain to Dad but Dad really could not accept it. Everything we used to do was wrong and we were treated as slaves. Our real mother used to send us presents but our step-mom used at times to sell them to get money. Instead of putting on clothes we used to put on rugs.

One day Aunt came to visit us she found us putting rugs and she asked us “Don’t you have clothes”? Before we answered, our step-mom told her that they don’t want to put on good clothes. Aunt told us to go and bath. Our step-mom told us that before you bath go to the garden and bring a sack of potatoes so that your Aunt can take some. We went to bring the potatoes and we were back tired. We told her that we were tired. She said that before you get tired go and clean the compound. I told her that it was clicking to midnight. She said that you are going to sleep outside.

When Dad was back I told him what my step-mom had told me. Dad told me “Get out of my house and you will not go to school tomorrow”. Actually I sat home for three years without going to school. I was burnt on the hand because I was going to report and they told me that if I report they will kill me.

One day, God answered my prayers. One of my friends came home and asked me why I was not at school. I expressed my problem to her. She said “Wake up and save your life. Go and report your step-mom to Police”.  I said that I cannot report her because she gives me supper only once. She told me to stand out of the crowd and to get out of the situations by making up my mind so that I could save my life. We went to the police to the Child Protection Unit. I was helped and my step-mom was arrested from that point, I was rescued.

I am Mukisa Phiona and I went through some forms of child abuse after the death of my mother. I was taken by my father to my stepmother in Nabweru because he was going for further studies.

I almost failed to stay for a year because she was too harsh to me. She used to make sure she could beat me every day. At times she used to refuse me to go to school reasons that I had to stay home to prepare for her children meals. One was in P.3 and another one in P.1 so they could come home at noon so she could order me to make sure that they come back when everything is ready.

I was in S.1 in 2006 and my school was Emmanuel College Kazo, she could make me wake up at 3.00 am in the night, she could order me to prepare morning meal, tea, wash clothes, mop the house and clean everything but worst of all it was on a daily basis and I would prepare everything but not allowed to eat anything.

She used to tell the children that any food they find they should consume and leave nothing for me. And the remaining food they would put it in tins and start playing with it. But I tried to bear with the situation since she had accepted me to go to school.

One day she ordered me to prepare beans and I did. She got a piece of steel wire and dumped it in the beans. She accused me of wasting her money and she ordered me to eat all the beans. She gave me no meals, but I was only feeding on the kg of beans for 3 days. I got complications in my stomach and even developed fever, stomach ache but got no treatment.

She told the children to call me house girl and that was the name I was baptized. At one time my Aunt brought me clothes because she knew that I needed them, but what my step mother did was to get all my new clothes and shoes and dumped them in the pit latrine.
One time the young sister got the knife and went with it and it got lost. She beat me 50 strokes accusing me to have lost the knife. I met and talked to one of the ushers of United Christian Centre by that time and she gave me a knife. When I took it to her she told me she doesn’t need it that she needed her real knife. She beat me up and locked me in the house. I was rescued by the neighbours and later taken to my Aunt.

Am glad that I can be able to testify of your goodness to all people via the Internet. I am accomplishing my S4 at St Peter’s SS Nsambya. I must say SchoolNet Uganda has done wonders through the World Starts With Me (WSWM) program.

 I  joined the WSWM program in S1 and never turned back. I have gained a lot of experience in sexual reproductive health and rights (SRHR) because I even conduct lessons of the WSWM at school.

I mostly thank SchoolNet Uganda for through this program I have been able to sensitize fellow youth from my home village about sexually related matters and at one time saved a girl from aborting.  I have been able to do all this because of the knowledge and skills I got from WSWM. Mine is more than a testimony, it is a thankful heart.

To everyone out there serving us through SchoolNet Uganda, what you do is a great job and please keep up the good work.

Am thankful and hope I will maintain my service as a member of WSWM even after school, because it has really given me a lot of peace to know that I am saving someone from perishing through the SchoolNet Uganda WSWM program

When I was in my third term holiday in S3, I went for holidays in the village to stay with my parents. I got some friends who were both boys and girls. The girls had boyfriends but for me I never had one.

Time came when one of the boys proposed to me that we should start a sexual relationship. At first I refused because I knew I was so young to engage in such. He promised never to hurt me and not to interfere with my studies. I listened to him and I thought he was understanding because he put my life and education as the first priority.

As we continued to slowly know each other in our relationship, I got to know that he had finished his secondary education and was taking a course at one of the institutions in Gulu. I got scared to be involved in a sexual relationship with a person who was much older than me because he was 22 years and for me I was just 16 years. Worse still, he had completed secondary school and I was just in S3.  I took heart and told him I could not continue with him. He assured me that he loved me no matter my level of education and no matter my age. When I asked advice from one of the girls I trusted most, she just encouraged me not to give up the guy since she claimed to know the background of the guy.

Trouble came when my brothers got to know about my relationship with the boy. They called mum and dad and we had a family meeting. My brothers told my parents each and everything they knew about the relationship. This annoyed my parents so much especially my dad.

When mum questioned me about the relationship, I had nothing to say because all what my brothers had said was true. They called my boyfriends’ father to the meeting. The boy’s father could not believe because he knew him as a well-behaved boy and had never any case about him since childhood.

It was now my turn. Dad became so bitter that he started caning me. He was joined by my brothers. They caned me so seriously using wires and sticks and at the same time pouring water on me. I even fainted for the first time in my life but even then, they continued caning me and pouring water on me. My mother also fainted from her high blood pressure. Later I tried to rescue myself by running away from home and hid in the bust to give time for their anger to cool down. I become so embarrassed and I could not move around the village freely because I had become a village laughing stock for what had happened to me but my mother kept encouraging me because she loved me so much.

Dad made a resolution never to pay my school fees and that I should never ask him for requirements I needed in life.
Later I took a decision to end the relationship with my boyfriend and to continue with my life and studies. Good enough, I had not yet had my sexual intercourse with the guy.

So friends, a wise person learns from the experience of the others. Learn from my experience. Abstain and concentrate on your studies.

The   World Starts With Me (WSWM) has enabled many students both girls and boys to know their body changes.
It has enabled both students and teachers to network with students and teachers across the countries and across the globe. Students and teachers have been trained on how to use computers and the Internet for academic research and communication.

The WSWM has helped students to share ideas in order to come with solutions to their personal problems.

As a person, I got a certificate of completion after attending a 5-day National WSWM Student Peer Educator workshop which was held in Dec 2010 at Gayaza High School.
As a student peer educator, I counsel my fellow students and other people and I try to live an exemplary life.
The WSWM should be given more support.

What I have enjoyed about being a member of the WSWM club is that it has played a great role in my life. I remember before joining this club, the freedom I thought I had was leading me to a path of destruction but when this savior the World Starts With Me came my way, I saw light due to the fact that no wind favours  one without a destination. 
After being guided by this club, I managed to forego all what I had thought was good and I got a destination where no wind can blow me away from.
I used to join bad groups which almost ruined my character because what one practices becomes a habit which becomes one’s character. But all this changed when I joined WSWM club which is a wonderful, interesting and educative club.

This club has helped me know how special I am and that there is no one on earth like me no matter what anyone says. God made me special and has a plan for me.
May be things have not been good for me in the past but I will not think about that because I can’t change the past but I will go on with my new changed life because the World Starts With Me.

I was fighting a lot with my parents because I just did not want to agree on certain things with them. My parents probably found it very hard and were wondering where I had got those funny ideas. My parents especially my dad did not understand why I wanted to spend most of my time alone.

A lot of things had changed in me in a short time and I never agreed with their point of view on a number of issues as before. Often I would have a lot of disagreement with my parents and I would end up fighting them.

When I joined the WSWM club, I learnt about emotional ups and downs and how to handle my emotions.  I have now really changed because I now know how to handle my parents. You can never know but parents find it difficult to watch their daughters grow into adults with their own opinions but my advice to fellow young girls like me is that you need to be patient with your parents as they adjust to the big changes in you.

One thing I have learnt is that patience pays but it pains at first so before it pays it has to pain. Therefore play your role as the parents also play their roles.

The WSWM club is a very constructive and educative club in our school. It nurtures you like a mother caring for her newly born baby and ever showing you the right path to a brighter future.

Since I joined the WSWM club in 2008, I have found my life easy. Through the WSWM, I got the courage and confidence to speak out to the public as a peer educator without fear because I developed the skills of free expression.

Through this club today, I adopted the best aspects/skills of life, ever assertive. I can’t accept a boy or a man to play around with my life because I learnt and know what I want first in life as my first priority. Of course, I can’t give any chance to a person who wants to destroy my future, the best is that I can only tell him that it is not the right time and I stick on a “NO”.

The WSWM has molded me into a person of respect and full of self-esteem. I know what is good about me and what is bad. Through this aspect of life, I tend to approach someone in a good and respectable way and appreciate everybody’s looks.

Through the WSWM club, I can act in skits and plays teaching people about the dangers of HIV/AIDS and I am always willing to participate in the fight against this killer disease and to see to it that the young generation comes up against the virus.

I appreciate of SchoolNet Uganda for the effective support to this club because it is the best key to life and the best club to embrace.
Long live the World Starts With Me club
Long live SchoolNet Uganda
Long live the teachers and the patron of the WSWM club
Long live the members of the club and the school at large
for embracing such a good club.

I am Ndyamuhaki Brenda, a WSWM club member since 2009 at St. Thomas Aquinas SS.
I have learnt the following from the WSWM:

Body changes are normal
As girls grow, they experience development of breasts and enlargement of hips. There is growth of beards in boys. Boys also experience “wet dreams”.  I need to keep my body clean and to be smart because of body changes.

Relationship does not mean sex
If you are with a boy standing together and conversing, it does not mean you will have sex with that boy. Sometimes when parents see a girl with a boy, they think they are planning to have sex. It is possible to have friendship between a boy and a girl without sexual intercourse.

Pregnancy in young girls
I have learnt that if you are a young girl, you don’t have to go in for early sex because virginity is precious and there are so many physical, economic and social negative consequences of early pregnancy.

My Rights
I have learnt that as a student, I have a right to education and freedom to cooperate with my students and age mates.
Protecting myself against STIs
I have learnt that the best way for me to protect myself against the STIs like HIV/AIDS, Syphilis, Candida is by abstinence only and not by using condoms.

Self-esteem 
Through the WSWM I have got self-esteem, learnt to love myself and that true love waits. The World Starts With Me (WSWM) club has made me feel good about myself.

As a youth, I got to know that the world starts with me after I had experience the following:
I started seeing my body changing in different ways; the growth of breasts, the widening of hips, the growth of armpit and public hairs and seeing blood coming of my private parts. I got had experienced before.

The World Starts With Me (WSWM) helped me to understand that I was becoming an old girl which was a good and not a bad thing. This helped me to have a well prepared mind that I should be responsible regarding my personal hygiene like cutting the armpit and public hairs short and to always bathe the whole body properly.
I conclude by advising my fellow youth to join the WSWM club because lack of advice from teachers or older people, may lead to diseases due to poor hygiene.