From Student to Mentor: How One UBORA Ambassador Is Multiplying Hope
“I Am the Result of UBORA”: Yona’s Story
Yona [Stanley] was born and raised in the [Arusha] region. In 2007 he walked into UBORA Leadership School for the first time. “I was so happy and very excited to be one of the students. When I was a little boy, I didn’t even think of being a leader or being someone who could help others.” That began to change in the classroom.
"Through my teachers, through my classmates, through mentors, something new started to grow in my heart: that I have to be a leader, in our community, in our families, even at a national level.”
A pathway, not a moment.
UBORA walked with Yona through primary school, secondary school and university, and then into a one-year internship. There he found mentors who kept building on what had started when he was a boy.
"I'm proud of UBORA because they made me. I’m the result of UBORA Leadership School. If I had not joined, I would not be in this place today.”
Even after the internship, the mentoring didn’t stop. His mentor, [Paul Prescott], gave him a copy of The Purpose Driven Life, and the two worked through it together. “It continues to teach me that my life is not my own. I have a purpose in this world. I was not created accidentally. God brought me into this world to contribute to others’ lives.”
"Success is not just having a lot of money, but helping others. When you uplift someone to reach their dreams, that is success. Since I joined the school, we have been taught how to love, how to care, and how to be compassionate to others.”
Passing it On
When Yona started his first job in [Karatu] district, he went to a local church with a request: let him teach the young people. Every Saturday he gathered teenagers from the church and asked them to bring others, including young people who had left school and lost hope. Together they talked about purpose. “They started getting something new in their lives. They started to know that they could begin again, that they don’t have to lose hope. The courage started going into their hearts.”
Then the teenagers began asking harder questions: How can we complete our mission? How do we reach our dreams with no education and no one to show us the way?
"Something clicked in my mind: I need to do something for these teenagers.”
Today Yona leads sessions [three times a month], walking alongside the next generation the way UBORA walked alongside him.
This is what multiplies
UBORA’s Code of Excellence calls us to create amazing opportunities and build what multiplies. Yona is that in action: an UBORA Ambassador formed for a lifetime of faithful leadership, now forming others.
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