When I met Maria, she was like a little flower that had been trampled. All she needed was a little "Sunshine" to enable her to flourish and blossom. I have written two blogs about Maria... "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?" (January 26, 2016) and "Maria- Problem Solved" (July 12, 2016). You may want to go back and read them again, but for those of you with little time so spare, here is a quick summary...
Maria lives in the community where our Sunshine Houses are located. We purposely spread our houses out amongst the community so that we can have an impact on the people who live around them. We have helped families with medical needs, educational needs, food, clothing, blankets, shoes and so much more. Maria has been in our lives for many years. There is something about her that tugs on your heartstrings. Maria has a speech impediment and walks with a limp. At the end of first grade in the public school, she was told she was deficient and could no longer attend school. For the next several years, she attended a preschool run by her neighbor. When Maria reached the age of 11, the director of the preschool said that she was getting a bit too old for preschool. I agreed. I found a local private school where the director was willing to admit her. She began again in grade 1 and has worked her way up to grade 4. We are very proud of her tenacity and positive attitude. She loves going to school to study and be with her friends. Our goal is to keep her in school until she is old enough to find gainful employment. She is now 16 years old.
As with most countries, our schools have been closed during the Covid restrictions. Here in Mozambique, our students only had 1 1/2 months in the classroom this year. They began their academic year in February and schools were closed in March. Except for the most elite of schools and students, online learning is not a possibility. Schools will not reopen this year for the vast majority of children, and students will receive a "free pass" to the next grade when they start their new academic year in February 2021. I am so glad that I had the foresight to hire a teacher to tutor our Sunshine Children, and of course we included our Maria. Thanks to Professor Daniel, they have been able to keep up with their studies.
The children have been little champs about attending tutoring, doing their homework, and having a great attitude these past months. I am proud of their efforts. I wanted to encourage them to not grow weary and wanted to find a way to incentivize them to keep on "keeping on". Last week, I shared with them that we are starting a "Student of the Week" program. Each week, Professor Daniel will choose a student who has been exemplary in being punctual to tutoring, respectful to him and others, and has shown effort in their work. I found gold medals to give each week's winner and made up bags with little prizes and candies.
I was thrilled when Professor Daniel informed me that out of all the children, his choice for the first student of the week was Maria!!! She is everything I described above and more. She has shown great progress with her maths, her attitude is always positive, and she puts forth her best effort every day.
Today we gathered together to present the first Student of the Week award. All of the children were excited and curious. They were antsy and fidgeting in their chairs. Each of their little faces showed how hopeful they were that they would be the one chosen. I announced to them that Maria was the winner!
All the children immediately burst into cheers and clapping. Every single child's face shone with genuine smiles. I am confident of this conclusion because I carefully and purposefully looked at each of their faces to check if this was for real. In fact, check it out for yourself in the photo below. All heads were turned and all eyes were on Maria. Take note of Cecilia's smile (in the back right corner) and little Maura peering up at her from behind me...
I couldn't believe it! They were so happy for Maria. Not one child showed disappointment that they were not chosen. It was clear that their joy for Maria was real and authentic. This made me so very proud of them! It was an outcome that I did not even expect to occur. It made this program a double blessing for me.
I presented Maria with her prize bag and hung the gold medal around her neck as the children continued to celebrate her achievement. As we left at the end of our gathering, they were chatting among themselves about how they were going to work to be the next winner. None of them know who the winner will be. But one thing we are sure of...the winner will be well celebrated!
