When discussing the right to education, the gender gap must be considered: two out of three illiterate people in the world are women. It’s also common for girls to drop out of school after primary school, while boys are allowed to study through high school. Unfortunately, entering the workforce follows the same trend: it’s more difficult for women to find dignified, adequately paid employment. But when a woman does succeed, what happens in her heart? We’ll tell you Mary’s story, her desire to study and help her family with dignified work.
Mary is traveling home, in the van that will arrive at sunset in her village from the city. So much has happened, so much! A few years earlier, she had finished secondary school. She was eager to study, to continue her education and find a decent job.
Her mother always told her: “Study, Mary, study!” She, who could barely read and write, had dropped out after elementary school. Her mother knows firsthand what it means to be a hard life tending goats and sheep, in the sparsely grassed pastures, or bent over in the fields, hoeing, weeding, harvesting crops.
Mary, yes, had a great desire to study, a desire mixed with fear: would she make it? Far from home, studying medicine… yes, because that was her dream, to become a doctor. One day the nun from the parish had asked her:
“Mary, what will you do when you finish secondary school?”
“I want to study…”
“Good! But what would you like to study?”
“Medicine.”
“You know… getting into medical school isn’t easy… Why don’t you study to be a nurse, and then, if you really see that you want to study medicine, you can switch to that faculty, and you’d already have a good basic preparation for tackling the study.”
She liked the idea. Together with her mother, they had found a school: it was a bit far away, but the costs were more affordable for the family. Then, the Sisters had promised to help every month. Mom went to the parish and received the precious money. And then, when the need arose for a computer for study, a Sister had accompanied her and her mother to the city to buy a laptop.
Year after year, lesson after lesson, exam after exam… then the internship, and now… tonight we celebrate the completion of her studies! The nuns came too, and then her godmother, her little sisters, and her little brother. Her proud mother, along with her silent, teary-eyed father.
During dinner, Mary feels compelled to speak. She, who is rather quiet, wants to overcome her shyness and say what fills her heart:
“I’d like to say thank you, thank you to all of you. It wasn’t easy getting this far. People are cruel sometimes. They laughed at me, they said, ‘What do you want to study, you can’t do it…’ I felt like crying. It was hard: far from home, sometimes very cold, sometimes with little to eat. And I made it.”
Everyone is excited and starts applauding, while tears roll down his cheeks…
Mary has five little sisters after her. She’ll find a job more easily now that she has a degree, and she’ll help the little ones at home. Not just financially, but with good advice: never stop dreaming. Grit your teeth and keep going. Because they have rights too: the right to smile.
Sr. Stefania Raspo, mc
