‘I SOLD SCONES TO FUND MY EDUCATION’

ISOLD scones to raise money for school but still missed the whole of Grade 11 due to financial constraints and almost got expelled from school but today, I am a qualified electrical engineer, running my own company in an industry dominated by men, says Melissa Hangoma. Ms. Hangoma, 24, of Old Kanyama Township in Lusaka, says she has seen life at its worst from being thrown out of the house in the middle of the night under a heavy downpour to almost getting ejected out of school for missing almost the whole year by uncompromising school authorities but says God is always faithful to those who trust Him. Ms Hangoma, the only daughter of a woman she barely remembers as she died when she was only four years old while she has never seen her father as he refused to take responsibility after her mother got pregnant, says she has seen the ugly face of poverty. She says had it not been for her aunt who kept her faithful when life seemed hopeless, she would have wasted her life into early marriage or would have veered into illicit behaviour just to make ends meet. “There was nothing rosy about my life. Raised by an aunt who was also struggling, life was unbearable but the worst came when I qualified to Grade 10 and got admission at one of the schools in Kafue. “I had to leave my aunt behind and had to look for a house for rent. There was literally no money. One of my uncles helped me with school fees for Grade 10 but I never set foot into class the whole year in Grade 11. “Even when I was in school in Grade 10 in 2012, there were nights when I went to bed without food. I did not want to bother other people I was renting the apartment with and so, I never asked for food from anyone. Staying alone at such a tender age with poverty hitting me hard, I would have been forced into prostitution but God kept me faithful. “I had no money to pay for either rentals or tuition. I could not return to school in 2013. I went back to Kanyama where I started baking and selling scones to raise money for school but this was not enough. “For almost a year, I sold scones and when I returned to school in Grade 11 term 3, my first headache was the school authorities who told me matter-of-factly that I would not get back into school because I was not serious. “The head teacher even went to an extent of telling me that there was no space for girls who ran away from school to sleep around with men and only retuned when they felt like. She even asked if I had not been married during the time I was away from school. The world was crumbling around me,” recounts Ms. Hangoma. She said things got worse when she got to where she rented an apartment as her landlady told her she could not get in because she had arrears. In January 2014, she went back to the school with her aunt who begged the head teacher to allow her to continue with school despite her absence the previous year to which the head teacher reluctantly agreed. When she went back to the apartment, she recounts, the landlady said she would not move in her room but allowed her to stay with her. “But she was a single mother who was also struggling to raise her children. Life for her was hard and bringing me in worsened it. Then, a certain lady from church offered to get me. She had a stable job. The challenge was that where she was staying was far from school but I accepted. “Even there, things were not easy for me. I literally became a maid. I used to go to school in the afternoon and that meant doing all the house chores including preparing lunch for the family. “Also, I had to come back early from school to go and prepare supper. This meant that I was always late for school, and then had to dodge from school to go and prepare meals in the evening before the owner of the house knocks off. “Being away from school for a year and dodging classes from time, I did not perform as expected in Grade 12 but managed to get a full certificate. I thanked the woman who kept in Kafue and left for Kanyama to join my aunt. “A certain private school offered me a job but I did not last because the owner of the school wanted to start sleeping with me,” she recounted. She said in 2016, she obtained a certificate in psychosocial counselling and worked as a volunteer at Kanyama clinic but that was not sustainable as she was not getting anything and she stopped. She then got a bursary to study a craft certificate in electrical engineering at the Thorn Park Construction Training Centre where she also did photovoltaic solar installation and graduated in 2018. Today, Ms. Hangoma owns her own company which was only registered on June 18, 2020, called Melitec Electrical and Construction Limited but says the only challenge she has to land bigger contracts is lack of equipment as she if forced to subcontract other people. “I have just registered my company and what I lack is funding to buy equipment such as drilling, welding, and melting machines, grinders, compressors, a generator, and ladders. It’s rewarding for a woman to be in a field which is considered to be exclusively for men and I want to make the grade. I am not only seeing challenges of competing with men. I am also seeing opportunities. “There are people who will give you a contract just to see if you can do it. Others will give you a contract because they believe women are sincere and honest and so, I am not intimidated. Of course there are times when people cannot just give you an opportunity to do the work because you are a woman. “Some people want to take advantage of that fact and propose sex over contracts but I will never fall for such because I know how God has led me and would not want to disappoint him now,” Ms. Hangoma said. She believes she wants to be among a generation of women who will get up, get dirty, and make a living for themselves than depending on men all the time. “We look down on ourselves because of what people say about us. I have been discouraged before. I heard this stereotype a hundred times but I have never been distracted. “Some people, say they have not gone far in their education because they did not have sponsorship but I am here. I had to drop out of school for a year to go and sell scones and get back to school. “The reason why most married women become destitute after their husbands are dead is because of this dependency syndrome where they contribute nothing to running the affairs of their home and when the breadwinner dies, hell breaks loose on them because they are not used to fending for their families. “Women, married or not, must desire to go back to school, get a trade and stand on their own because that is the only way they will be financially independent. I am planning to take my aunt back to school soon because she has seen me through thick and thin. She has been there for me when all seemed hopeless and she needs my empowerment. “The other thing killing us as women is that we are too smart for nothing. We want to be too choosy when it comes to learning skills. I am living testimony of the fact that women can find space in the men dominated profession. “In this field, you don’t need to wait to be employed because you are an employer yourself and this is something I am proud of,” Ms. Hangoma said.

For almost a year, I sold scones and when I returned to school in Grade 11 term 3, my first headache was the school authorities who told me matter-of-factly that I would not get back into school because I was not serious.”