I WAS DRESSED LIKE A HOMELESS PERSON TO BEG MONEY AT WALMART

 I WAS DRESSED LIKE A HOMELESS PERSON TO BEG MONEY AT WALMART, I WAS NOT ALLOWED TO GO TO SCHOOL OR TO PLAY BASKETBALL

Mercy Amechi is from Enugu state Nigeria, she was a college athlete and a chef, she currently owns her food business Chyfoodnetwork, (fedup.co/plug/cookwchy)  she moved to the United States of America seven years ago to study and also to play basketball; Mercy attended Monroe college in New York where she obtained an associate degree and then moved to Hampton University Virginia, where she also obtained a B.sc in Sport management and business. Growing up, she dreamt of living abroad but also thought that it was a fanciful hope which will never happen, but as God will have it, today she is living in America and living her dreams. 

Mercy shares her story about why and how she left Nigeria to pursue her dreams abroad, the challenges she encountered, what kept her going and how she overcame all obstacles to get to where she has always dreamt to be.  As a young girl growing up in Nigeria, she hatred going to school, the only thing she loves doing was sport and cooking and that was the only reason she went to school.

 She got a scholarship to come to the US to play basketball and also to go to school through the Ejike Ugboaja foundation, a charitable organization that provides educational opportunities for young Nigerians through sport. She got to know about the foundation through a friend on Facebook who happens to be one of the coaches that comes to the camp every year to select young athlete to travel to America for a camp where they could be discovered by schools. She was fortunate to be selected to attend the camp in Atlanta. During the camp, some coaches took interest in her but unfortunately, she did not receive I-20 to remain in the country to go to school and to play basketball, she returned back to Nigeria, but she never gave up, she kept sending series of emails to the organizer of the program until he got her a scholarship to come back to America. 

Starting out in American was very rough for her, because her two years of high school was awful. Mercy got a scholarship from a high school to study and to play basketball for the school, but things didn't turn out the way it was stated on her admission letter. When she arrived at the high school, she realized that every information on the school website was a disguise, there was no female basketball team and there was no scholarship. She got to find out that the school would offer scholarship to young people from other countries to come over to study, but used them to beg money to pay for their fees. It was a terrible experience for her, she was not allowed to go to school, she was always dressed like a homeless person to beg money at Walmart from sunset until dawn. She did it for a long time with the hope that she would be allowed to practice with the boys basketball team, when that was not forthcoming, she became tired of begging money for the school and wanted to go back to Nigeria, her status was terminated and she was warned by the school not to  reveal what she went through to anyone.

Ejike Ugboaja the organizer of the camp assisted her again to get into another high school where she found happiness and life began to evolved for her. American dream came to reality for Mercy when she got into college, she met a wonderful family who became her legal parent and things began to fall in place, she found family, she found a home and she got scholarships to attend university and to play basketball. Mercy encountered a lot of challenges on her journey but she never gave up and today she is living her dreams.