Sadick Sebufara

Sadick is one of the first students Educate! gave scholarships to in 2002.  He graduated from secondary school in 2007 and will soon go on to university.  Below is a short autobiography:

Hay! My name is Sadick Sebufara, a young man from DRC. I was born in January 1st 1986 in a small village called Cheya in Jomba parish in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo formally Zaire in North Kivu province. When the war broke out I was at school so I just ran to take refuge in neighbouring country Uganda because my village was already occupied by rebels. Reaching in Uganda I was led to a place called Nyakabande in Kisoro district a district that is at the boarder between Congo and Uganda where I joined another big population of Congolese who had already fled to Uganda earlier on to save their lives. I was able to meet my Mom, my elder sister and two of my elder brothers. My father who had gone for his routine work as a doctor had already been killed while on the way back home. So I lost my father and my education was interrupted for 3years. Anyway I cannot go through all the memories of war now because it was the worst experience of my life. As the last born I now live with my old Mother of 63 years who is now a vulnerable as a result of the situations she passed through while trying to save her life.

What I thank God for is that he saved me and I have had a good experience meeting people of different types in the refugee camp and wherever I go. For example I met Eric Glustrom a young American man and I became one of the first students he sponsored when he started Educate!, an organization for sponsoring refugees students in Africa. I met this outstanding young man in Kyangwali refugees settlement on his first tour to Uganda and Africa at large. Eric became like a ladder for me to begin discovering what the future holds for me including many other students he sponsored after expanding the organization. He introduced me to his family back home and many other friends from USA whom most of them were students like me. These people become very important in my life as far as my psychological development is concerned, and as I talk now they have changed my way of reasoning and handling matters for the better. They have tried to make me leave the memories of war back in my country and have helped me to see how to go about the difficulties in the refugee camp as well as balancing the academics with social life. They offer me what I call psychological massage and have made me experience what I can call psychological evolution. They include among others; Eric’s mother, Leslie Glustrom and the sister Rachael Glustrom; it was in 2002 and I was in a boarding school at a school called Duhaga secondary school in Hoima district where I completed “O” level from in 2005 and shifted to St. Lawrence Citizens’ High School for my “A” level and completed in 2007. I am now attempting to apply to a University outside Africa preferably in the USA.

The other people I consider very special to me are ;Beth Heckel,also known as Mama Africa ,the founder and president of “Think Humanity” a non-profit organization, www.thinkhumanity.org. This Lady is just like a mother to me; I don’t know which words I can use to describe her.

There is this beautiful lady called Stacey Frumm. I call her Miss USA at one time and another time my Big Sister. She is a rare personality and have rare characters, I can’t forget her contribution to Educate! by helping me.

The people mention above and many others I was not able to mention will always be in my memory. They have totally changed my life for the better, and each year I develop new and different ideas of life because of them. Please if your name has not been mentioned it doesn’t mean I have forgotten you.

However this does not mean I no longer face difficulties in life. As a human being born of a woman, I sometimes face a very difficult situation which even Educate! itself may not be able to come in to help, and at this point I want to thank the refugees Educate! students who have been there to support me where they could. I have the following people at heart; Muhwezi Daniel, Nziyonvira Ntakamaze, Morjan David, Benson Wereje, Joseph Munyambanza, Bahati Kanyamanza, Amani Jean-Paul, and many others. Please my fellow students under Educate! I am calling upon you all to keep up with the same spirit of helping each other, since we speak the same language I hope we shall understand ourselves and all of us shall benefit from the unity and solidarity that we have. Let us use this opportunity of education knowing that many eyes are on us to see what kind of future generation we shall make I love you all and I trust you.

About Educate! supporters, donors and sponsors, I think I have run short of vocabulary to use to say thank you for what they are doing, because “thank you” is not even enough. For they are the pillars of Educate! my fellow students will agree with me that if they aren’t there then Educate! as an organization could not also be there and that means our future would be unpredictable. Please donors, supporters and sponsors do not get tired in your acts of kindness knowing that when you educate us you educate Africas tomorrow’s generation because we are Africa’s future generation.

“It doesn’t matter how much you learn but what you do with what you learn that makes a difference.”