My
Story

This, i choose to invest

WHY KEEP A GIRL IN SCHOOL IS IMPORTANT?

I grew up in a poor family and every thing was a struggle in our live.

There was a time when my parents disappeared from home for good months without food, no money and I had become a mother and a father to 6 siblings at 10 years and I had to go to the dust bin to pick food people throw in garbage in order to feed my siblings (long story behind that too).

We hoped for a better life when my father came back to us after disappearing but again worsened after coming back with a stepmother.(it's another story).

In my tradition, a girl child was not supposed to go to school. She was supposed to be trained on how to become a wife material.

My mother got married when she was 15 years old. When I was around 14 years, there came a man who told my father that I should stop going to school because his son was interested in marrying me, I refused and luckily my father agreed with me. I was the FIRST girl and the FIRST person to graduate in my whole village.

This was not so easy to be the first to break the community laws, it had some consequences to my life,

What helped me to overcome them was because I was so determined towards my education and this helped me to realize what was good for me but not the community.

BACK ON MY EDUCATION JOURNEY,

I remember in my adolescence, I had only one underwear with a hole, and sometimes I used to go to school without underwear. When I went into my menstruation I had to cut one of the two dresses I had to pad my self, and sometimes we did not have soap to wash our clothes(pads)and only used just water, (not pure water but dam water) this was unhygienic, but it was by then the only way to go. This was also the same with my sisters apart from our step-sister of our stepmother.

Most of the time blood could go through my uniform in class, i couldn't move to play or go outside the class and because of the fear for the boys to laugh at me, i had to just sit in one position until everyone left the class.

This also happened to many other girls in school which resulted in them missing classes, being demoted, engaging in early pregnancies and early marriages.

NOW

I could no longer just talk about what's happened and ?ip over!

I am deeply compelled to take action by,

Empowering adolescent girls to see their potential and the opportunities that life can offer, helping them dream of a better world and their place in it. Through providing sanitary hygiene needs, (pads, underwear and soap)
Educating both girls and boys about the natural process of menstruation and the risk of unwanted pregnancies.

Knowing how to say NO will hopefully equip the young people to make the best choices and lessen the devastating consequences of carelessness and lack of responsibility.

You, too, can do something about the ill things that are happening to young children in your society like the insecurities, fear to be shamed at school, low self-esteem, Just like me. We are all uniquely gifted.

Change starts with you! #No shame in menstruation!

#KEEP A GIRL CHILD IN SCHOOL.