I'm Daliyana, but this isn't about me - I am raising funds for this young lady, Mary Sosopi. She had participated in a probono mental resilience & wellbeing workshop I ran for youth leaders in underserved communities. Some of us were lucky to be born into privilege, some of us were not. Let's help pave the way for Mary to graduate from her last semester of law school without being homeless or going hungry.
I'll let her tell you her story in her own words.
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My name is Mary Sosopi, a 23-year-old final-year Law student at Mulungushi University. My journey began in Itezhi-tezhi, Zambia, where I was abandoned by both parents as a child. My grandmother, a woman with no income, fought hard to raise my two brothers and me - she fought hard to keep us alive. In recent years, I'd found my mother but my father remains unknown.
Education was and is my only hope. Thanks to non-profit sponsors, I was able to obtain primary school education through to university - till the supporting NGO aged me out of the program at the worst possible moment, my last semesters. Now, without any financial support, I face an impossible choice:
- Pay school fees for the last semester or lose my degree
- Pay boarding house rent or face homelessness (while at school)
- Pay microloan sharks (for my school and living costs debt taken by my mother) or face continued harassment and increasing loan costs
I’m the first in my family to reach university. Becoming a lawyer isn’t just my dream—it’s my chance to lift us out of poverty and fight for equality for others like me.
Your help can change my current reality:
- ZMW 5,883: Clears me for my finals so I can graduate.
- ZMW 6,000: Clears my mother’s predatory loans.
- ZMW 12,000: Pays overdue rent to keep me housed.
- ZMW 9,000: Covers food and basic needs (my friends are currently sharing their meals with me).
- ZMW 17,000: Covers rent, food and basic needs for the next few months, till I find employment after graduation.
Every Zambian kwacha brings me closer to:
- Earning my LLB degree and starting my legal career.
- Opening a law firm in future to serve marginalized communities.
- Creating scholarships for abandoned children like I once was.
Why Donate?
- You’re investing in a future advocate who’ll defend the voiceless.
- Your kindness breaks generational poverty in my family.
- I’ll pay it forward: 10% of my first salary will go to a Zambian orphanage.
Every kwacha counts. Thank you so, so much.