Lucy Richard: From SEGA Student to SEGA Teacher

Today’s post highlights a SEGA graduate who returned to teach new SEGA students!

Lucy Richard is a Standard 6 and 7 teacher at SEGA, and a SEGA graduate.

Lucy Richard is a Standard 6 and 7 teacher at SEGA. She is originally from the Mbeya region of Tanzania – about 11 hours’ drive southwest of the school. Lucy’s journey to becoming a SEGA teacher started with becoming a SEGA student! After graduating from SEGA, Lucy did well enough on her national exams to qualify for teaching college, and after attending teaching college she became certified as a teacher – paving the way for her to come back and teach at SEGA. We asked her to share her story with us.

Before she joined SEGA, Lucy said, “I used to have a very hard life at home.” She lived with her mother and did odd jobs for neighbors to make enough money for them to eat. Lucy heard about SEGA one day after church. She told us, “I was immediately interested and went to ask for more information about this school. The next day I walked a long distance to find the center where my interview for SEGA would be conducted. I sat for the exam, and thank God, I was able to pass and come to SEGA.”

Lucy credits SEGA with helping her learn skills like how to make money, manage money, and save money – and how to plan and run her own business. Since graduating, she has shared this knowledge with her family and friends to enrich her community. Lucy’s strong relationship with her sponsor was also very important to her. Lucy and her sponsor, Nicki Bibbo, wrote letters back and forth very often while Lucy was at SEGA. Nicki attended Lucy’s graduation and continued to support Lucy while Lucy was at teaching college by buying her a computer after she left SEGA! Lucy told us, “She encouraged me and supported me in so many ways. I love my sponsor.” We are all very grateful to have such generous and dedicated sponsors for SEGA students.

Lucy also stays in touch with her friends from SEGA. She says that many of them are still in school, have their own businesses, or are working with her in SEGA’s Modern Girl (Msichana Kisasa) Life Skills Outreach Program. Through this Outreach Program, Lucy and other SEGA graduates are leaders in these communities where they help to set up Girls Clubs and teach girls “to be confident, to know themselves, to know their rights as a girl, to know how to have their own business, and many other things.”

Lucy loves to share her story with her students. She tells them about where she came from, her time at SEGA as a student, and study techniques she used to succeed. She encourages her students to work hard so they can achieve their goals like she did. She says she is so proud to be a teacher at SEGA, and that she truly enjoys her job. Her favorite subjects to teach at SEGA are Swahili and Civics. Lucy currently lives in Morogoro with her mother. We are so proud and happy to have Lucy as a role model for SEGA students!