I Want to Stand Where My Teacher Stands

Hasina is eleven years old. She lives in Nyarugusu Refugee Camp in Tanzania, but she has never known the Democratic Republic of Congo, the country her family came from. Her grandparents fled violence in the DRC in 1998. Years later, Hasina was born in the camp. Then she lost her mother. Her grandmother became the person responsible for raising her. Her father remained in the camp too, but he had another family and Hasina did not see him regularly. It would be understandable if an eleven-year-old in those circumstances struggled to imagine very far into the future. Hasina does. Every day she sits in her Grade 5 classroom at Mapendo Primary School. She watches her teachers. She listens. She learns. And somewhere along the way, she decided that one day she wants to be the person standing at the front of the classroom. She wants to become a teacher. School has become more than a place where she learns mathematics, languages or other subjects. It is one of the places where she feels happy. Her teachers encourage her. They take time to help her understand. And Hasina has started imagining herself doing the same thing for another child. She wants to teach children like herself. Children whose circumstances might make their future seem predetermined. Children who need someone at the front of the classroom telling them that there is still somewhere else they can go. She also dreams of being able to support the grandmother who has raised her. Hasina's dream is still a long way away. She is eleven. There are years of education ahead. There are circumstances she cannot control. Nothing about the future is guaranteed. But right now, every morning that she enters that classroom, she can see the person she hopes to become. Sometimes that is where a dream begins. Not with certainty. Just with being able to see yourself somewhere you have never been. Who do you see when you imagine the person you might become? This is an editorial retelling of a documented account. Original storyteller: Hasina Mista. Country: Tanzania / Democratic Republic of Congo. Source: UNHCR Africa, 15 July 2026.