A former hard working Building Block student sharing her story.

Tooti, was one of the building block program students in the year 2019 who saw this program as a blessing to her. She said, “I am so grateful for this Program as it is giving me a chance to learn again”. Tooti was so grateful that she is now able to write and read again in her own language.

Before joining the program, she had struggled with her writing and reading skills in Kiribati since she left class 6 in primary school level in 2015 and it was embarrassing to her that she did not know how to write and read. Thus, when she first joined the program, she found it very hard to learn literacy because she was illiterate. This was a fear for her to come to school every day. But she gave herself courage that had made her to overcome that fear. She kept saying to herself that she could do it and so she kept on practicing until she got it.

In Tooti’s community she also had a hard time, since people in her community, especially teenagers at her own age, always made fun of her since she was joining the building block program at that age. She said, “Whenever I came back from school, people at my community always say annoying things like “Wow a building block student is back!”.”  This was because Tooti was a grown-up person now and she was still learning like a kindergarten child. So, this was being sarcastic to her.

Tooti had faced hardships in life regarding her attempt to do education at mature age. The people around her were not supportive but instead they had made her as a laughingstock. But this did not stop Tooti from going to school and she continued practicing until she was graduated from the building block program. She felt so relieved when she was graduated from this program because she is now confident in her writing and reading skills and has no more embarrassment and she feels like anybody else who knows how to read and write.

Therefore, this program has helped Tooti a lot and she is so grateful to have been educated by Building Block Program. She wants to encourage all her community members, friends and especially her family who have the same problem to go and register their name at ChildFund Kiribati Building block program so that they can also get their confidence in reading and writing. She also encourages everyone when she said, “If you want to learn something you must work very hard for it until you get it.”