Background for Seitatolo 'Dorah' Setlhare

My name is Seitatolo Setlhare my friends call me Falala. I’m 20 years old and I live with my cousin and my little boy. My mother died in 2003, my father died in 2006 and my younger sister died in 2011. Life was so hard for me after losing my family, for a time I lost focus and my purpose in my life, I just did not care.   Time is an amazing thing; through a lot of soul searching I came to realize deep down that I knew what I wanted from life, and who I wanted to be.

With the loss of my family life was not the same, I was an outsider in my extended family who I was living with. I was not treated well but I realized that I had a life to live. One thing that gave me hope and was a bright spot in my life was my little boy; I knew I had to be strong for him. I want to give him a better life than I have had. I promised myself that am going to do my best I can for him.

When my parents died I felt so lonely but I know things will be okay because GOD is always on my side, he still loves me, and He gives me strength to carry on.  Being His daughter, I want to make Him proud. My life was a hell; I used to cry every day when I go home. There were few things that helped me be positive; school was one of those things.

I went to primary and secondary schools here in Kanana. I wanted to go to varsity but because of funding and a late application I was not accepted. One day my Secondary principal called me and asked me to come to his office for a meeting. That day changed my life, it was the day I learned about a school called World Disaster Management Community College.

ABOUT WDMCC

I’m learning so much here we are getting new information every day and things get better every day we have our memory stick/ jump drive that help us to load our work in it, we don’t have to carry bags that are heavy it’s so good because our jump drive is our books in our pockets.

We are also taking online test from FEMA and this is so exciting. I didn’t know much about disaster management but now I know a lot of things about emergency and I feel that I know what to do in case of emergency I feel I am more prepared.

We have learned about emergency planning in our class lectures. We have applied the teachings by creating our own family emergency plans and are also developing an Emergency Operations Plan or EOP for the Kanana Secondary School. We even have the support of the Fire Department; they are training us on basic firefighting skills and about how to be a support to our community.

My short term goals      

I am sure my goals after school are not very different than other graduates, I want a job, I want to see the success for my classmates and I would like to make a difference in the world around me.

My long term goals

Longer term my goals are to further my studies, and get better experience so that I could not only have solid understanding of Emergency Management but real world experience behind me. As part of this I want to get my Certified Emergency Management (CEM) and I would love to work at FEMA, bringing them my international feel and understanding. With this background I would like to further my career and work for a big company maybe leading some of their international women’s work in emergency management.

Future out looking

We started in September 2012, and we are now in the second semester. Things did not start out as I expected but now things are working out for us. I can see myself achieving more than what I expected. I think I’m going to get what I wanted because am going to work so hard to reach my goal. I want the children in Kanana to study in this college, and want my local area to be the best most resilient place in South Africa when it comes to disasters.  To accomplish this they must know and understand how to plan, to respond, to recover, to mitigate and prevent disaster events; following what we have learned can help make Kanana resilient. That’s what I see in my future.

Skype time with Mr. Ty and Mrs. Jan

Our College has a lot of online activities and one of my favorite activities is when we have Skype time with our teachers. We have had great lectures from Ty Davision, he even showed us his emergency operations center.  We have also gotten to speak with Mrs. Jan, oh she is such a darling, she is always so happy and positive, she motivates me to do more and be more. I know with her support behind me I will succeed.

Challenges

As we all know it’s not easy to start something new. However with time it’s get much better, you get adapted to them.  At first I thought I was still at high school, I used to play and did not take this seriously until Mr. Landon came in Kanana and took over. When he first taught us I didn’t understand his accent I felt like I was watching an American movie but now things are very good I hear every word he tells us. It will be hard when he has to go back to the States. We have gotten a good start with his help and we will be successful as a College because we have worked out a lot of the little problems and we are committed.