TWINKLE MAE BOHOL 2023 SIA LIVE YOUR DREAM AWARDEE

 

Indescribable poverty fired in me the audacity to dream big; the obstinacy to cling to my dreams until they’re reality. Papa started another family since before I was third grade. My mother and us five sisters started subsisting on two-meals of lugaw daily from the half kilo of rice I could afford from selling stuff in school. Ulam was salt or sugar or soy sauce-oil. In school, looking undernourished in my wrinkled uniform, worn out shoes and socks triggered not compassion and kindness but bullying. I had had to quit school until I found ways to earn money: cleaning people’s houses, tutoring, selling snacks. I honed my talents and academic abilities to join competitions for cash prizes: math contests, spoken poetry in Filipino and English, quiz bees, poster making. Family struggles compelled me to remain an honor student, my hope to get to college. Just before turning 17, I was raped, dashing all my hopes and dreams. Only the painful realization of the needs of my mother and sisters roused me from deep depression and hopelessness. I have accepted what life had given me but I struggle to sleep; crying secretly; fighting alone to survive, I supported my family during the lockdown, investing in my calligraphy skill and ₽100 on an online business personalizing blank keychains. But with hardly any orders in 2022 I could only enroll in my final year in high school through benefactors. On graduation day I cried thinking that ended my education. This SY 2022 I got to enroll without tuition at a university taking BS Computer Engineering. SI Antipolo provides for my internet load and other miscellaneous. I am so humbled and grateful to be one of the Federation Live Your Dream Awardees. LYDA is my only chance to achieving my dream of becoming a computer engineer, opening doors of opportunities to achieving my other dreams. LYDA will enable me to make a difference in the lives of some young girls to bring out the best in them.