December 18, 2020
Recently, Miriam (a TFFT scholar) and I sat down to discuss the role that TFFT plays in her life. Miriam is an incredibly bright young woman who has been a TFFT scholar for eleven years. I am happy to share her story, in her own words, with you for today’s Friday Feature.
“Although 2020 has been a tough year for me, it has also been a year of realization. Realization about how much TFFT means to me. Sometimes it takes a problem for someone to understand the privilege they hold. I have been a TFFT scholar for eleven years and for all those years I thought I really knew what TFFT means to me and that I appreciated TFFT’s support enough. But, then the COVID pandemic came.
It is no doubt that COVID has made a lot of people realize the value of a healthy life, but for me, the pandemic made me realize the true value of TFFT in my life. My name is Miriam Daniel and I am a TFFT scholar studying at Magnificat High School, with a dream of becoming a doctor.
Although imagining myself being a doctor brings such a beautiful feeling, my life has not always been that way. I lost my mother at a very young age, and my father took me to my aunt because he couldn’t afford to take care of me. Life was very harsh at my aunt’s to the extent that I decided to run away and go live with a stranger. At a very young age, I learned to move houses in search of help but I had no luck finding one. My life circumstances forced me to feeI like I was nobody until TFFT and Mama Bille (my current guardian) came into my life.
TFFT and Mama Bille gave me hope and confidence. They made me love myself and I had forgotten all the pain of my childhood, until COVID came. COVID brought back all the past experiences with what it has been doing to the school system and to the economy. For the first time since I joined TFFT, I started to worry about my education journey and felt like COVID was stealing my future from me. But, during this time, TFFT did whatever they could to help and protect us regardless of the threat that COVID has had on their health.
All the fear that COVID brought, and everything that TFFT did to protect us during this time, reminded me of the privilege that every TFFT scholar has and how much we owe our life and our future to TFFT. I came to realize there are no words of appreciation that could properly express the impact that TFFT has had in my life. And so today, I want to say: my life is better because of you. Thank you for investing in my future and for taking good care of all of us even when it is difficult.”