Tribal fighting affecting students

WORDS cannot express the feeling desperation to get educated by children from Sugu Valley in Kagua-Erave, Southern Highlands as the new academic year progresses and students are excited to go back to school.
The tribal warfare in Sugu Valley that lasted about eight months has devastated the lives of many students.
Students from elementary to colleges and universities are badly affected-physically, mentally and psychologically.
People of Sugu Valley and Kagua-Erave are yet to know the importance of education in this postmodern world.
Some classrooms are gone with everything in it while the faithful teachers packed and left.
All we have now is nothing but desperate brains longing for education.
We don’t know when these brains are going to be filled and get educated.
Education is life, key and hope.
We need education so desperately to make a better living in this 21st century.
A man without education in this modern world is no doubt a rug to somebody’s door step.
Uneducated kids are going to be liabilities to society.
These and others are the undefeated facts signifying the importance of education today.
The future of Sugu Valley lies on the hands of these kids we are dumping away like nobody’s business.
Sugu Valley needs God and education more desperately than the guns, bombs and other sophisticated weapons we are smuggling into this beautiful valley to kill our own flesh and blood.
We, the children, are innocent. We don’t want to live the life styles that our forefathers lived in the 60s, 70s and backwards.
We want change, and we want to be that agent of change.
We want to travel the world and live a life full and rich and be proud sons and daughters of Sugu Valley.
Who knows, one of these kids left out on being educated could be the future prime minister, MP or a great leader.
Maybe some of these children might write some bestselling books.
These kids are the very solutions to some of the biggest problems we face today in our society.
We don’t know what sort of potentials are buried in these kids.
Our children are like seeds, they are carrying something important that this world needs.
We cannot deny the fact that a tree was trapped inside a tiny seed before it grew. It’s a matter of time and environment.
Once you plant the seed in the soil, it germinates, grows into tree and produce fruits that feed thousands of creatures.
The same principle applies to life.
Why are we destroying these highly gifted brains?
What are we doing with the next leaders of tomorrow for Sugu Valley? What are we going to give them to inherit as we leave this earth?
Are we going to give them the guns and weapons and tell them to be warriors forever?
Are we going to tell them to be subsistence farmers forever as we are?
It’s not time to be another generation of subsistence farmers.
It’s not time to be another generation of tribal war warriors.
It’s time to rise above all these mental conditionings with the help of God through education and make a real difference in our family, community and the world.
Please God, break the chains of devil, allow your light to shine and clear the darkness in this valley and let your peace flow like the mighty Sugu River from Puli to Okopo and restore once more this beautiful valley that once experienced your spirit of revival.

Pioneer student,
Rotianda Primary School