The First Ones Are Ready to Fly
There is something special about watching someone you have walked with reach the point where they are ready to take their next step.
This year, that moment has arrived for the first Form 4 students of the Galana Energies Foundation.
They were our first cohort. We met them as young students with dreams, potential and families determined to give them a better future. We welcomed them into the Foundation, supported their education and, along the way, surrounded them with people willing to guide, encourage and believe in them.
Now, they are preparing to leave secondary school.
And somehow, it feels like they grew up right before our eyes.
More Than a Scholarship
When the Galana Energies Foundation began this journey, the ambition was never simply to pay school fees.
It was to find deserving young people with potential and give them a genuine opportunity to change the course of their lives.
That commitment begins with selection.
Our teams go into the communities around our stations, meet students and visit their homes. We sit with their families, listen to their stories and seek to understand the circumstances behind every application.
It is a process that asks something of the Galanites who volunteer their time — but it also gives something back.
Because behind every application is a child with a story.
And sometimes, all that stands between that child and a different future is an opportunity.
Walking the Journey Together
Finding the students is only the beginning.
As they grow, their needs change. There are decisions to make, pressures to navigate, careers to consider and moments when a young person simply needs someone older to listen.
That is where our mentors come in.
In August, our Form 4 and Grade 10 students came together with their mentors and parents for a special mentorship engagement. For our Grade 10 students, there is still a journey ahead.
For the Form 4s, however, this gathering carried a little more meaning.
These are the students who started this journey with us. Now, as they prepare for their final examinations and life beyond secondary school, we are beginning to let them go.
Not because our belief in them ends here, but because this is what the journey was always meant to achieve: young people ready to take the opportunities ahead of them and begin building lives of their own.
Who Will You Walk With?
As our first Form 4 cohort prepares to leave school, another generation of students will need us.
And this is where every Galanite can become part of the story.
When the next student selection exercise begins, volunteer. Go out into the communities. Meet the families. Help us find the young person who deserves an opportunity but may never get one without someone taking the time to see them.
And when we call for mentors, sign up.
You don't need to have all the answers. Sometimes mentorship is simply showing up, listening, sharing what you have learnt and helping a young person see possibilities they may not yet be able to see for themselves.
Our first students are getting ready to fly.
Behind them will come another class, and another after that.
Years from now, we may not remember every selection meeting, mentorship conversation or Saturday we gave up to participate.
But somewhere, a young person just might.
And perhaps that is one of the greatest things we can do as Galanites not only energise the future, but help someone believe they have a place in it.
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