Divine Ntungane

I am 20 years old and live in Gisenyi.

I was born into a family with six children: four girls and two boys.  I am the last one in my family.  My parents and my sister died during the 1994 Tutsi genocide.  Of the six children in my family and three of them died when I was three years old.

My uncle came to save my life.  He told me that I must go to school.  I started to study, but when I reached the first year of high school, my uncle became sick.  After five months, he died.  My uncle’s wife did not love me, and she told me our relationship was finished because my uncle died.  She refused to let me go to school and she told me I had to leave her house because she was not my mother.  She said she didn’t want me before her eyes.  I remember sitting in my room and trying to think about my life.  I made the decision to commit suicide, but then I thought about my future.  I remembered that I had a sister and that I wanted to be with her.

My sister has three children and her husband died.  She is poor, but she tried to help me think about my future.  We lived in very bad conditions, and I had to go back to school without any school materials.

Now, I am going to a good school, and I study math, geography and economics at Agahozo Shallom Youth Village in Rwamagana District.  I have one more year left to finish my studies.  I want to study management at university after I finish secondary school.

Now, I want to be successful in life.  I am in the fifth level of high school, Senior Five, and I will finish my high school education in 2012.  I am studying mathematics, geography and economics.  I want to be a bank manager or a geologist in the future.

I hope to find someone who will help me to continue my studies after high school.  I have a slogan in my life: “if you see far, you go far.”  I know I can go far with education.  When I am successful, the first thing I will do is help others who have problems, especially orphans.  I want to tell other orphans to be strong in their lives.