Kofa Marusa, the small village where Nafisa grew up, was a modest village of 200 people.
It was on the outskirts of the main city and seemed to have a world of its own, untouched by civilization. They were famous for their basket weaving skills and the abundance of meat that the men hunted from the forest that encircled the village.
They still used water from the stream for their domestic needs and had no proper waste disposal system.
The only contact with the outside world was trips to town to sell the wicker baskets and mats woven by the women and the meat of animals killed by hunters.
The children in the community were mostly farmhands, as they had yet to discover the beauty of education and how it could transform the community.
Being the last of five children, Nafisa had no such responsibility, so she spent most of her days watching her mother and the other women weave baskets, a craft she fell in love with.
She happened to go with her mother to town on the days when they went to sell baskets, and she was struck by how different life in town was from life in her small village. It made her long for city life, for the clothes the children wore, and for the language, they spoke as they played among themselves.
Nafisa wanted to learn to read and write, as it was one of the things she envied about children who grew up in the city, but her dream seemed so unrealizable because there were no teachers or schools in her small village, and learning in the city was impossible, as it usually took three hours to travel to the city from her village. She could not voice her desires because the thought of Western education was foreign to the people of her community. Only a miracle could make her dreams come true.
Children like Nafisa deserve the life they dream of, no child should be denied the opportunity to learn to read and write, so we at LEMA PLAN INTERNATIONAL work tirelessly to help children get into school.