Her Zulu name means strength. It could just as easily mean hope, though, or courage, or tenacity – all attributes that are immediately noticed as soon as she speaks. She is also a friend to many, a star pupil, and yes, even an aspiring lawyer.

Mandisa is one of the young teens living at St. Vincent Children’s Home, an orphanage in the small community of Mariannhill, South Africa. Tucked away in the far southwest corner of this missionary community, past the overflowing hospital, past the two elementary schools, past the historic convent, the children’s home lies along a narrow path that forms once the main road ends. The cluster of small brick buildings constructed by Trappist monks over a hundred years ago overlook a former cow pasture, and the congested cinderblock homes of Mpola township crowd the opposite hillside. The buildings of the orphanage form a cloistered square of wild grassy patches and a rickety swing set – a rudimentary, even primitive play space by our western standards, but likely the only place of comfort and safety that the children have ever known.

Like Mandisa, most of the children at St. Vincent’s come from KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa’s most impoverished province. Over half of the population in the province live on less than two dollars per day. Over a quarter of the people are infected with HIV, making KwaZulu-Natal among the hardest hit areas in the world by the AIDS pandemic. Devastated by poverty and by disease, the communities whose children end up at St. Vincent’s struggle to attain even the most basic needs. Without intervention such as employment, schooling, or an adopted family with greater resources, these are the communities to which the children will return when they reach the maximum age of eighteen years old at the orphanage.

So it was with a torn heart that I responded when Mandisa first confided to me her dreams of becoming a lawyer. “A lawyer!” I exclaimed, “you’ll make a great lawyer!” And the truth is, she would. She speaks better English that most of the other Zulu-speaking children at the orphanage, better even than probably the kids in the surrounding townships. Equally confident around children and adults, foreigners and South Africans, strangers and friends, Mandisa exudes a sense of vibrancy, maturity, compassion that make her both a leader and a friend. Yes, the question is not if Mandisa would make a great lawyer, but if she could. Lacking both financial means and a supportive environment that could encourage her through the process of continued education, Mandisa faces formidable challenges to pursuing her dream.