Victoria (18) is from Congo but was born in Egypt. She has three older brothers, one younger sister, and a three-year-old brother. She is currently living alone with her mother and four siblings as her father passed away in 2020 when he returned to Congo to visit her family and tried to find work at the Embassy there. The family believes her father was poisoned by some family friends, because they were jealous of what he had achieved, coming to Cairo in 2003. 

Victoria has an Egyptian birth certificate since she was born in Egypt but a certificate is not the same as nationality. Victoria has Congolese nationality but as she was born in Egypt she has an Egyptian certificate. She could not obtain Egyptian nationality as her parents are both Congolese. Her sister (13 years old) went to St. Josephine, a private school. 

Victoria has gone her whole life to African Hope Learning Center, a Protestant refugee learning center that follows the Sudanese curriculum until grade 8. Once children arrive in grade 8 they pass the exams at the Sudanese Embassy for entering secondary education. African Hope used to have a partnership with StARS. Their students would go to StARS to continue their secondary education. Before 2008 they were also offering high school services, but in that year, it was removed since they could not handle this. The same year they also removed the British curriculum. Until 2008 students could choose between the International or Sudanese curriculum. Victoria’s father was the principal of the Africa Hope learning center. 

Victoria explained to me that her English is so good thanks to African Hope. She describes the learning center as a good one.  She is the ex-girlfriend of Mandela and she went to Africa Hope with Lidya, another student at the CAWU Learning center. She attended the Sudanese grade 8 exams for accessing secondary education, but she failed just one point as her grade on the Arabic exam was too low. She wanted to examine it again but that year her father passed away, so she did not. She does not read or write Arabic, she does not know Arabic, she just knows the basics for communicating in the streets. Moreover, she told me that she already tried to learn Arabic in African Hope which she found a waste of time. Teachers, she said, were not willing to help her, she felt as if she was bothering them. Now she does not want to learn Arabic anymore, she does not like the language at all. She also knows some Italian as she watched cartoons in Italian when she was a child. She is now interested in learning South Korean. She has heard that education there is really good, and she even would like to go to a university there, She has done some research and she told me that it is really hard to get into there. She has big dreams, she wants to do something related to art and music, but she explained that the most important thing about her dream job is that she enjoys it while doing it. Her plan A is to go to Canada to do her university education there, but she really does not want to live there in the future, she really wants to visit Mexico one day, and Greece as well. Her plan B, if she cannot go to Canada, is to attend Malvern College in Egypt, and complete her studies there. She has been at CAWU for 2 years, she enjoys it a lot here. Her elder brothers are all working in call centers. She also works in a call center while studying. Victoria works from 15 pm to 12 am 9 hours 5 days a week. She told me that currently, her little sister used to go to St. Josephine, but as it is far away from home and they charge her 12.000 EgP per year for secondary school education. Her sister will try to go to CAWU to continue her secondary school education. Victoria told me that she is a funny person but also hard working. She dreams big and is willing to fight until reaching her dreams. She loves Maroon 5, she prefers the mountains over the sea, and she hates bananas. She explained this story: “There was this time in Africa Hope, we finished school at 18.00 as it was the afternoon shift, we were on our way back home, always in a group. Do you know the bridge for crossing the metro? It was dark and some Egyptian teenagers started to throw crystal bottles and stones at us. My dad, who was the principal at that time, was really brave and interfered in the fight.”