Contest: BACK TO LIFE PROJECT BY @iconnelly. MY ENTRY

I want to appreciate @iconnelly for this selfless act of #teardrop. It is evident that we have people around us who at one point or the other have been down and often, we are the ones down. it will be bad of us to turn a blind eye to them. Watching @surpassinggoogle on his posts and now @iconnelly makes me more interested in the #backtolife-project. This brings to my memory the words of ronald reagan

we can't help everyone but everyone can help someone.

I want to appreciate @kingernie for introducing me to steemit and also @elbess @anjiba @greenrun @mimy @stan @lizzyharrison for making my steemit experience a beautiful one.

• HOW I LOVED SOMEONE BACK TO LIFE

In my first year at the university, precisely the second semester, i met a friend. His name is BELLO. He was a cool guy but had a problem making friends. He was either tagged too nerdy or overlooked as a member of our department (partly because of his stature and extremely young face). This isolation affected him both academically and psychologically as he had one of the poorest grade in the department (100level). He either got information too late or never got at all.

Image Source :muslimlibrary.com

Source: dreamstalk.com

I noticed him when he sat beside me in a class and i saw his matric number on his iD card. I tried making friends with him and perhaps due to stigma, he drew back. Several attempts passed and we became friends. Since then, his grades improved and once, his parents called me to thank me for helping their son fit in.

It was no big deal on my part but it went a long way in saving someone's academics.

• HOW I WAS LOVED BACK TO LIFE
  I usually don't tell people this part of me except i see a need for motivating people to be good or a need to tell them what has been my source of motivation..

Born weeks after my father died, i coped with having a single parent. My mother refused to remarry for reasons best known to her and every time i asked, she replied with answers like "it is for your good", " i'm protecting you". I did not find a good reason to agree with her replies but she taught me to respect people's decisions so i had to start with hers.

12 years later, she died due to illness. I felt lonely. It was as though i should jump into the grave and be buried with her. Well, i did but not me. All my dreams of studying aeronautic engineering, having my university degree in south africa. And the likes of them jumped out of me into the grave and they were buried with her. I wont like to go into the details of the "dark ages" but a month after her death, out of nowhere, her eldest sister masterfully plotted my way out of a potential boarding school (we were supposed to resume late Jan). The fees for the boarding school had been paid and everything was in place. Then she called my then caretakers for me to come spend two weeks of my holiday with her. And that's where hope came from. I have been living with her and her family (now my family) since then and that one act of generosity gave life to little me. It's been over nine years now and the memory of how hope was restored to me keep lingering in my head.

Yes. It's part of my goals to give a child hope by helping his/her academics (plans are almost in place) and the driving force is that i have seen hope, I will lead others to it.