Helping Nobody Become Somebody

Day one of Camp GLOW introduced learners to the concept of character: the qualities that make average citizens exemplary and good leaders great ones. Learners decorated shirts with the adjectives that described their best qualities and showed off their unique traits.

Most of the kids huddled over their work—marker in hand—and tried to list as many positive characteristics as they could, while they talked with new friends. But one boy, a quiet learner from a village outside of Etosha Game Park sat in silence and covered his shirt with the letters "NB".

Nothing else.

We later learned that "NB" was short for Nobody. It was the name our camper went by at school. It was the name his friends called him. And sadly, we found out that Nobody was a nickname assigned to him by his teachers. The adults he was supposed to look up to and respect had given him a name that had ultimately caused him to lose all respect in himself.

Once facilitators and volunteers heard this story, they decided it was unacceptable to repeat or encourage the use of this name. So starting that day, Nobody began to go by SB—Somebody. From that moment on, when a facilitator said, “I need somebody to help me with this,” SB would step forward and say, “I’m Somebody!”

On the last day, when learners added the new qualities they’d discovered about themselves to their shirts, Somebody changed all his NBs to SBs. And finally Nobody became Somebody.