From Arusha to OMS: Why We Started
The largest club at my school is a service organization called the Leadership Committee for Africa (LCA). That’s where it all started.
During my freshman year, I applied for a scholarship to join LCA’s spring break trip to Arusha, Tanzania, and I hid the entire application process from my parents. As an international student, spring break is one of the 3 times during the school year when I can go back home to China, and I was afraid they would want me to come home instead. So, I applied without telling them.
The trip was highly selective, and I was extremely lucky to be blessed with the opportunity to go on the trip. I proceeded to tell my parents about this news, and they turned out to be very supportive about it. With everything ready, I packed my bags and departed for Arusha after my last exam before spring break.
Nothing felt real during the flight as I couldn’t believe that I was setting off to the continent of which all I knew about came from the movie Lion King. As soon as the 18-hour travel was over, our team was greeted by students from The School of St. Jude, the school LCA partnered with that hosted our stay during the time. It is already 11 pm, but seeing how happy the students and teachers are as they pulled us in for a traditional dance with traditional music, we forgot about time.
The time we stayed went by fast as I met and forgot the local students whom I’ve shook hands with and smiled at. As much as I want to remember everything, I regret that I couldn’t. However, one name specifically sticks in my heart: Furahini. She was in 4th grade when I first met her that spring. I talked to her on the school bus while the outside was pouring with rain as we were heading to St. Jude’s in the morning.
Over the remainder of my first visit, I ate with her during her lunch time, played basketball with her, and talked about her dreams for the future. I noticed something in her that reminded me of myself when I was her age. While being ashamed to admit that I assumed otherwise, I realized for the first time that although being halfway across the world, we are not much different from each other.
Carrying the promise to return in the future in my heart, I was luckily accepted to the trip with my school again in 2026 to return to Arusha. Although being the second time for me to experience everything, the new relationships built with local students and details that I missed in the first time kept leading me to new revelations.
During a home visit to a Goodluck, a 3rd grader at St. Jude’s, I noticed the dire situation of lacking electricity in his area of residence. The only source of light in his house came from the open doorway. When the sun sets, or when it’s raining outside, his time to study was cut short. Believing that a student equally capable, if not, more capable than I am, should have an equal opportunity to exercise his potential to the fullest, One Meter of Sunshine: Light Africa Initiative was founded.
Looking back, it still feels strange that all of this started with an application I was hesitant to tell my parents about. I went to Tanzania thinking I was traveling somewhere completely different from the world I knew, but I came back realizing how much we actually share. Furahini, Goodluck, and the many students I met were never just people I wanted to “help.” They were students with ambitions, curiosity, and potential just like mine, but with opportunities shaped by circumstances they never chose.
One Meter of Sunshine grew from a simple belief I carried home with me: where the sun sets should never determine how far a student can dream.
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