Rosemary, 16 years old, Grade 8

Meet Rosemary, the highest performing girl at Yosefe Primary School last year. The first person in her family to go to secondary school, Rosemary joined our Female Empowerment programme in 2018 when she was in grade 6.

“I have gained a lot of confidence through the club. I was constantly bullied by my schoolmates, but I learnt to ignore them. I decided to believe in myself and work hard in school. I learnt how to understand English because of the girls club and I scored this high because of the girls club.”

Rosemary scored 765 in Zambia’s end of primary school Grade 7 examinations (equivalent to 95% — almost unheard of for children at Yosefe School). Her high marks enabled her to select the secondary school of her choice. She chose to go to Eastern Girls Technical Secondary School, the top all-girls boarding school in Zambia’s Eastern Province.

After finishing school, Rosemary has dreams of studying medicine, and she would also like to help others in the same way that she has been helped: “I want to become a doctor so that I can give people medicine and treat them. When I complete school, I also want to start my own orphanage to be able to help children around my home.”