At 14, Khadija Said from Lumumba Secondary School in Unguja, Zanzibar dreamed of becoming
a journalist a dream she nurtured quietly, almost secretly. But for most of her life, she felt her
voice was too small to matter. Growing up in a traditional coastal Islamic community where
girls are expected to be calm, respectful, and silent, Khadija learned to speak carefully or not
at all.
She often feared saying the wrong thing, being misunderstood, or being told she was “too loud”
or “too forward” for a girl. Slowly, those fears dimmed her dreams. “I wanted to be a journalist, but deep down, I feltlike it wasn’t for girls like me,” she says. “Every time I tried to speak, my voice would shake. I thought people would laugh, or tell me I don’t know anything. I started to believe maybe my dreams were too big, too bright and that scared me.”
When her school introduced the ALiVE project Life Skills Club, she joined with hesitation. But
week by week, the sessions changed her. She learned how identify problems, search
information about them, and best ways to find solutions to an impeding problem. These aspects
amplified her communication, self-esteem, and decision-making that started to breathe life back
into her dreams. Khadija’s Story: A Girl Who Found the Confidence to Speak
I didn’t know life skills could open your mind like this,” she says. “Before, every problem felt like a
mountain. I used to panic, keep quiet, or wait for someone older to solve things for me. But the more I learned, the more I realized I have the ability to think, plan, and overcome things on my own. It was like someone slowly switched the lights back on inside me.”
Her turning point came before her Form Two NECTA exams when her watch essential for managing her study time suddenly broke. Her family couldn’t afford a replacement. The fear came rushing back.
“When the watch broke, it felt like everything was falling apart,” she says. “I thought, ‘Here we go again I can’t fix this, I can’t control anything.’ The old doubt came back and it was heavy. But then I remembered what we learned about breaking a problem into steps. For the first time, I trusted my own thinking