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Yusuf Sumani
It never ceases to amaze us the number of inspirational stories
we continue to find here in Malawi. We have become familiar with the stories coming
out of the red brick huts and thatch-roofed homes that dot Malawi’s rural villages. Other times, however,
a truly heartwarming story is found right on the streets of Mzuzu, Malawi‘s third largest
city and the headquarters of Africa Bags. Such is the story of Yusuf Sumani , whom
we found on the edge of the parking lot for our office.
Yusuf was born in 1966
in southern Malawi, near a town called Mangochi. He was born with severely deformed feet.
For his entire life, Yusuf has been unable to walk and has been forced to crawl on the ground, often moving less
than one or two blocks in an hour.
Still, Yusuf managed to move to Kasungu,
a town near Mzuzu. There he married and fathered two daughters and one son.
The two daughters have grown up and are now married, raising their own families.
Yusuf’s son has successfully passed his primary school exams and is now studying at secondary school as a Form 1 (9th
Grade) student. Despite his disability, Yusuf had up to this point managed to feed
his family by farming. Yusuf would sell maize and goats to pay for fertilizer and
farm labor. For many years, Yusuf and his family managed to get by like this.
With his son’s success in school, Yusuf has found himself unable to meet the cost of school
fees. Secondary school in Malawi is not free, and costs K19500 ($130) per year. For any Malawian,
$130 not easy to come by. For Yusuf, who is living with a disability and unable to
walk, the cost of his son’s education is nearly impossible. Determined to get
his son educated, Yusuf has come to Mzuzu to sit on the street and ask for assistance.
When he told us he uses the money to buy clothes and bicycle parts for a shop he is starting back in Kasungu, were
we both surprised and skeptical. Having heard a lot of stories from “beggars”,
it is often hard to distinguish fact from fiction. When he produced the receipts we
were truly amazed. Yusuf needs to invest K28,250 ($188.33) to even start his business
and pay for his son’s education.. Already he has invested K11,120 ($74.13), leaving himself
K17,130 ($114.20) short of the bare minimum to open his shop. We hope that with the help of our friends
around the globe, Yusuf can far exceed that amount, invest in his business, and see that
his son gets properly educated.
Item #504
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