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Giving voice to displaced children and young people.

I woke up earlier that morning, preparing myself to go to school. Into the school compound, I started marching to my classroom and while standing at the classroom's door, I discovered that there was new arrangement of desks in the class. It was now two desks facing each other with one side almost forming a circle of most of my classmates.

Each group member was busy in their own way. Some were doing class work. The front groups were welcoming their day scholar friends who had just arrived, back benchers were shouting so loud with too much excitement that they couldn't bare hiding their white teeth. I then realized that indeed most of my classmates were already inside the class waiting for the morning lesson to begin.

It was one of the coolest and calmest days, the sky was cloudy and rain seemed to announce itself. The wind was blowing, making the leaves fall off the trees, giving me a strong sensation of embracing what the day could have offered me, as I discretely curved my lips and nodded a yes.

I then sat down on my favorite seat near the door, next to the window where I use to observe the nature down the valley from my class. My school is up the hill and I placed my bag on the windows arm as usual.

In about five minutes to lessons, the teacher came in, in his black closed shoes with one of his black trouser and a blue t-shirt which had a black round mark on it as design. He held two text books in his hands and of course it was time for our chemistry lesson. Since the students in class had not yet notice the teacher inside, they couldn't stop conversing, so the teacher silently stood up in front of the class for about a minute and called up for the class attention. They got to be aware of the teacher's presence, got off their books and pens from the bags and lessons began.

Turning to pick my book and pen from my bag, I felt some coldness on my skin, from the escaping wind which was passing through the small openings of the window. It made feel at peace like a bird in the sky, I therefore thought of opening the window after the first lessons to enjoy that sensation. And so, I did.

Opening the window, I saw students moving up and down. Some were holding their books heading to the library, others to their classes, while some of them just stood up at the verandah, all in their school uniform of grey trousers and skirts with white shirt on top, since it was a Tuesday.

Curiously a boy and a girl student stood outside near the window where I was and started conversing about an interesting fact that pulled me out of my observation back to listening to them.

I overheard the girl say, "Last term I use to see you much into books and too serious about studies, what is happening this term? You seem to have lost interest".

The boy responded, "my sister just finished her UNEB exams and she did well, she was very happy and excited about joining a world of opportunities and job employment, but now she is home, jobless, struggling, and her papers does not recognize her. But I wonder, I use to see people who never went to school, who do not even hold any certificate of accomplishment in a certain level succeeding in life. The future seems to treat them well. So you're right I have just lost interest in putting much of my energy into studies, for fear of struggling like she does".

"But fortune favors the bold," the girl argued, and we should be courageous enough to seek for opportunities here and there to secure the future. So if your sister keeps home, how will she find a solution to that?"

Since it was time for the second lesson, they were sent back to their classes. But just after them, their conversion made me think of giving a summary of it to one of my seat mates to know what she thought about it. Together with my seatmate, I came to understand that their conversion would be fruitful if we picked from it the necessary information and through that we gained some life lessons that could be part of us now. Those lessons are as follows:

Our efforts, courage and commitment towards everything we do in life determines who we become later.

We should apply skills gathered at school to become more innovative, and we should always acknowledge ourselves to keep on empowering young people around the world.

And one of the most valuable lessons is that we should never get discouraged by what we see or listen to. After all, everyone will get a period of success or satisfaction during a lifetime and one of the best ways to achieving a lifetime satisfaction and to secure a future is first investing our energy in studies as young people, because we never lose by learning something new.

It was a blessed day and this conversation made my day special.

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