Back in July of 2019, Auckland University kindly donated science kits for TLFF volunteers to demonstrate the dynamics of light with local LeFaga children.
The science kits allowed students to make their own spectroscope and pinhole camera.
One of the students who stood out at the time was 11-year-old Fatima. She had an intense interest in science and the experiments being demonstrated. Fatima was very eager to engage with all the volunteers and know more about them as individuals. To sum it up, she had a magnetic personality and a formidable desire to learn. (Seated in the middle of the back row).
At 16, in November of 2023 she decided to apply for a TLFF scholarship to study Medicine. Fatima initially thought that although she dreamed of being a Doctor, she would study to be a nurse.
Volunteers Afamasaga Su’a Ramona Su’a Pale Gilchrist and Andrea McKenzie were interviewing prospective scholarship students on that day and were able to encourage Fatima to pursue Medicine first. A concept that was not foreign to Ramona or Andrea, but can seem like an extraordinary aspiration Samoa.