Name: Lakica Candy        School: UNIFAT        Joined: 2008

         Meeting the students in Unified for UNIFAT’s Education Initiative is an experience in diversity of personalities and characters. Lakica Candy is one of them but doesn’t quite fit into the quiet, loud, shy, or playful groups. Perhaps she fits in with all of them; at times she is quiet and keeps to herself yet has a laugh that is both joyful and lively. She likes playing but won’t tell you, and is as studious in class as she is respectful at home. Throughout all of these, Candy carries with her a character that is exceptionally mature and cheerful.

    Candy moved to Gulu in 2008 because her mother had passed away while giving birth to her and the father abandoned the family shortly thereafter. That same year she entered Unified for UNIFAT’s Sponsorship Initiative as a 4th grader (P4) and started to receive support.

    Before heading to school in the morning, Candy makes sure to mop the house and put food on the fire for lunch. When asked what her favorite thing in the world is, without blinking an eye she responds, “People.” Candy can often be found laughing, studying, or hanging with friends at school. She loves playing seven stones and telling stories with her friends. Her favorite story? The creation story because “it tells about where things come from.”

    After finishing school around 6:30 in the evening and riding her bike three to four miles home, she cooks dinner for herself and the four other people she lives with. She does all of this with such earnestness, obedience, and humbleness that it is hard to believe she is only twelve years old. Candy exemplifies the Acholi expectations of reservation and obedience, however spend five minutes with her or crack a joke and her true personality escapes through energetic laughter, authentic kindness, and a caring attitude.

    When she is not cooking or helping out at home, Candy is studying and revising her class notes. She takes her class work very seriously and is always focused on doing her best. She tells anyone who asks that she is going to become a nurse because she wants to help people. Science is her favorite subject and is the one she looks forward to most each day.

    Even all of this would not guarantee Candy’s success in the Northern Uganda. There is a high rate of children dropping out of school because of high tuition and an absence of free universal primary education. That rate soars even higher after primary because the cost of high school is two to three times more. Yet Lakica Candy’s future is bright because of her dedication and the support of her sponsors. She seems ready and determined every day to take advantage of the opportunity she has been given and do great things for her family, her community, and Uganda as a whole.