Innocent Tumusiime
Age 12-years-old
School Seeta High
Class Senior 1 (8th Grade)
Village Kisenyi / Kampala
Family situation I stay with my mother. My mother tells me that my father abandoned us. I have never seen him.
I want to be a medical doctor
Ambition I want to help children who live in slums like Kisenyi go to school.
Hobbies Computer games and music
My story
“My father abandoned my mother when I was a little boy. I can hardly remember his face. We hardly had meals until she got a job as a cleaner in a supermarket. She rented a one-room house in Kisenyi slum. Life was so hard in the slum because many drug addicts stayed near our house. They scared me as they walked around smoking opium. There are open sewage trenches that run around our house. This smells so bad. Our house leaks. We have to move the beds when it rains.
I begged my mother to send me to any school because I wanted to study just like the kids I saw pass by our house every morning. I wanted to keep away from the dirty environment at least for a few hours. I also wanted to be of help to my mother after I became successful. Then I can help her move to a different area. She took a while to respond, to raise the money, but after five months she enrolled me in 3rd grade at Grace of Lord Primary School. She struggled with my school fees and sometimes I stayed home as she looked for money.
Last year, in one of my mum’s endless searches for help, she came across L.E.A.D Uganda. God was on my side, because I was called for an interview which I passed very well. L.E.A.D Uganda promised that if I perform excellently in my 7th Grade National Leaving Exams that I will take in December, I will go to a top high school. I got 9 aggregates on the exam which is an A or 1st grade. I was admitted to Seeta High..
I am so happy that I have such an opportunity in LE.A.D Uganda. I know I will make it. I am an excellent student. I believe in myself and I am hard working. I know of very many kids that don’t go to school and won’t get any opportunity to be helped. Maybe in future it will be my turn to help them. I want to help children who live in slums like Kisenyi go to school. I want to be a medical doctor after my studies. I love being a doctor because you become a solution to the sick and hurt. I will set up a medical center in the Kisenyi slum where I have grown up, because lots of people fall sick due to poor hygiene.”
