Happiness is…another good news story!

Learn to Live received funding from StreetSmart Cape Town, towards the hospitality workshop training instructor salary. Enjoy reading about Sonia’s goal…

Sonia is 14 years old and a year-1 learner at the Learn to Live School. Her goal is to become a professional singer, since she is blessed with an exceptional voice. She is quite shy, but when she gets up in front of an audience, she sings with confidence and loves the peace and happiness this brings her. She lives in Hanover Park and says that it’s not always safe there as there is a lot of gangsterism and drugs around. 

She says: “My family is poor, and my mom doesn’t have work, my father works on and off.” Sometimes she goes to bed without food. There are times when they do not have electricity and it is dark and cold. Sonia sometimes gets scared and sad when her father consumes alcohol and starts arguing with her mom.

Yet she comes to school with a smile on her face and hides her anger, sadness and helplessness from her peers.  “I don’t know what I would do without the school, and Ms Shereen, my teacher. When I feel like giving up and leaving the school, she motivates me to pick myself up and to carry on. The teachers at the school make the impossible, seem possible.” Sonia loves hospitality and is now trying out her skills to the delight of her mom. Through her singing she makes people happy. “I am grateful for this school - for giving me food, education and travelling money to complete my schooling and to find a job one day so that I can help my family.”

NOTE: Whilst the story is true, the name/s have been changed in order to protect the child/ren.