By Queen Mbori-Saina
During the Young Citizen Prize Giving Day, Mr Bakari Machumu, the Acting Group Managing Editor of Mwananchi Communications Ltd, delivered a very interesting speech.
First, winners were asked to note down what they want to be and how different they would be? At the end of the exercise, the best doctors, pilots and lawyers in the making stood in front of all the invited guests.
What emerged in all these is that while it is easy to dream, living the dream is something else.
The Guest of Honour engaged the winners in another session which involved climbing the ‘ladder of success’ first freely and then with their hands in the pocket.
Moral lesson is that the journey to success isn’t a walk in the park.
It involves hard work, focus and commitment. In a small town in southern China, this road is also paved with snakes and ladders.
To get to school, children have to make the perilous journey on narrow wooden ladders every day, with no safety precautions.
The only way out of Zhang Jiawan village located in Badagong Mountains, is via a series of rickety-looking ladders leading down to the valley below.
Going to school is a daily struggle unless the children have time for a four-hour cross country detour.
Olivia Williams of Daily Mail reported how anxious parents have no choice but to let their children use the ladders if they want to get an education.
So when youngsters like five-year-old Liu Dan start school at the nearest town, the first thing they have to learn is how to climb.
Liu admitted: “It’s quite high but I try not to look down.”
“My parents showed me how to do it safely and now I don’t think too much about how high it is,” she added.
The road over the difficult terrain would cost nearly £10 million so residents are not getting their hopes up that it will happen any time soon. How far would we go for success, is fodder for thought.
