Morris volunteering at an event with all of the local Donela schools
Morris and Keneth, a nursery school students sponsored through Life With Hopegave Morris the opportunity to help video coverage of their medical mission. Soon after, he was told that he was being considered for a sponsorship to help him finish his education.This time, he enrolled in a bridging class provided through Cisco, which would enable him to receive his high school diploma, and apply for acceptance at Ndejje University, near Wobulenzi.When Morris Onapa was asked what he would do, if he could do anything, the answer was a no brainer for him. He would go back to school. The oldest of five children, Morris grew up with a father who emphasized the importance of education above all other things. “He wanted to lay a foundation for us,” Morris said. “He thought at the end of my last term of high school, I would start university on a government sponsorship.”
Morris dashed his father’s hopes when he failed to finish high school, ruining his shot at a sponsorship. He laughed sourly, cracking nuts and sitting on a small, woven, stool when he described his family’s financial situation in an interview. While his father made the equivalent of $200 a month as a teacher, it cost each of his six children individually $300 a term to attend the school he taught at. His salary was confiscated entirely in order to supplement the payment for their education. Money for food or rent came from side jobs he acquired.
Morris entered high school with the burden to find a way to pay for more than half of his schooling. Never able to pay the fees for a full semester, Morris skipped from school to school, evading tuition bills and picking up an expensive marijuana and alcohol habit in the process. “Alcohol was common in my family,” Morris said. “When we got restless as little children, my father used to pour us something to quiet us.”
Determined to finish his schooling somehow, Morris sought to pay for his education through loitering at stationary shops, where many of his friends worked selling books and writing supplies. Supporting himself through his natural talent for graphic and design, Morris found clients that needed work printed on letterhead, or with graphics. He did work for them through using friend’s computers, afterward using printers at the stationary shops he had become accustomed to hanging around.
“If I knew you had a computer at your home, I became your friend,” Morris laughed.
Morris’ final high school examination fee brought face to face with an obstacle he could not dodge. “They come to ask you for the full clearance [payment], and if you don’t have it, you have to get out,” Morris said. Without the means to pay the $50,000 shilling fee (about $25 USD), Morris was kicked out of his test after completing just one section. His failure caused him to slip quickly into his old drug and alcohol habits.
After dropping out, Morris sought employment again, this time starting a video library with a friend. “He had the money, I had the brains,” Morris said.
In 2005, as a 22-year-old, Morris re-enrolled in school in a course on computer maintenance. He again met with an impossible obstacle when he was faced with the fees for his final examination. This time, it was 100,000 shillings, about $50 USD. In the midst of working without enough pay to finish school, and struggling with addictions that he couldn’t kick, Morris began to help a woman named Kevin Akitwi run her stationary shop. There, Morris met Millie Ojera – an encounter that would change his life.
Through a relationship with Alex and Millie, Morris was introduced to medical teams that came to Bombo, and given the opportunity to work with the media involved with them. His obvious skill led to a scholarship that enabled him to return to school in 2009.
Morris is currently six months into his computer course funded through Align Ministries by Peninsula Community Church. In eighteen months Morris hopes to be the proud holder of an internationally recognized UK Diploma in Computing and Information Systems.
Rather than working for the government, Morris said he hopes to work with the church, so that he can offer service to those who are lacking in opportunity.
“I want to help people who are struggling the way I struggled,” Morris said.
(Photos by: Shanley Knox).
