Amos Victor O.
St. Al’s Graduation Class of 2011
St. Aloysius School “Transforms and Prepares Young People”
Amos lives in Kibera slum with oldest brother, Paul, who is his guardian. Paul, 27, is a tailor. “He works hard to feed the six hungry stomachs who depend on him. This means that we sometimes miss some basic needs if the day’s business is ‘bad’.”
He considers it a small miracle that he found out about St Aloysius School. A neighbor who he befriended is a year ahead of him at St Al’s and suggested it. Since Amos is an AIDS affected orphan, he realized that he is qualified to receive the benefits of a cost free education at St Aloysius Gonzaga Secondary School.
Amos explains that after finishing his primary school, and doing well in his class work, he had to sit out for a year due to lack of funds for further schooling. “If I wasn’t at St Al’s, I could not afford to go to school at all. I guess my future plans of becoming a pilot and part time novelist would have been doomed and jinxed.”
Amos chose to come to St Al’s because, “the school transforms and prepares young people to have a bright future and to help the community. So I decided to help in the transformation of the community.” “By their actions I can see that my fellow students are dedicated to their studies, eager to learn, and grateful for this opportunity to become critical thinkers.”
He awakes at 4 am each day and goes to bed at 11:30 pm. In the mornings he prepares himself and his two young nephews for school. “By 6:30 am I’m usually seated at my desk completing my homework that I couldn’t finish the night before due to lack of kerosene at home.” In his spare time he enjoys watching football and reading novels. Lately he says he has become interested in chemistry too. He is in the journalism club which helps him, “unearth all the schools secrets and gossip!”
He’s grateful that “the school administration is working so hard to give us a good academic education.” He says that, “our teachers really care about us, and when we have problems they can help us.” Amos has been chosen “class prefect” for the second year boy’s classroom. “As a role model I try to behave well and to help in solving any problems that arise.”
Amos is especially grateful for the school’s support to help them through college if they do well in their studies. He mentions the added benefit of learning about the outside world by meeting so many foreign visitors and constituents who come to work and visit the school.
Amos has an overall desire, “to contribute back to Kibera by somehow helping the unlucky children and the many ‘lost’ youth in the area.” He’s confident that St Al’s graduates will become the “backbone” of the country and help to transform it.
Amos concludes by urging the “benefactors and constituents of St Al’s to continue with their generous and kind hearts. Sometimes I sit and wonder what kind of people they are that contribute to my education and I’m grateful to them.”
~ by Jim Collins, SJ
To learn more about and support St. Al’s, please visit the website http://www.sagnairobi.org/ or call 1-800-922-5327 at the Chicago Province of the Society of Jesus - http://www.jesuits-chi.org/
