“My name is Mary Ngalanda and I am 17 years old. I would like to be a nurse when I grow up.”

Mary is one of the beneficiaries of the House of Hope benefiting from the Wings of Hope school sponsorship programme. She lost her father while she was very young. Mary is now 17 years old and is a student of Mlodza secondary school studying in form 3.

Mary stays with her mother in a mad grass thatched house which leaks during the rainy season making life really unbearable for a girl whose dream is to be nurse.
When Mary’s father died, the relatives took away all the family could depend on leaving her mother not just a widow but poorer than most members of her village. Mary is the last born in a family of three. The first born is a school drop-out and the second born is a secondary student supported by Wings of Hope.

Mary’s Mother is living with HIV/AIDS currently on ARVs. Mary’s education gets disrupted whenever her mother gets sick. The family depends on hand stone quarrying for income which is not reliable. Proper diet for the family is another challenge as the mother who is living with HIV/AIDS needs to have a well balanced diet. However, her unpredictable business of stone quarrying cannot manage to provide for the family of three where Mary is the last born.