Let’s girls Learn so Women can Lead: Building Schools for Better Futures

My grandmother, Adama, doesn’t get the opportunity to go to school but she shows so much interest in my education that I realize from an early age, the value of education. She is so proud of every achievement I made in school that she gives me a sense of accomplishment about my education, at a very early age. 

She is the most intelligent person I ever met. I imagine what my country could be like if she had the access to education and the opportunity to make contributions towards national development.

She is born and raised in a small village. They tell me stories of how many years later,  her father, my great grandfather, cries with regret when he visits the capital city and sees women working in offices, and wishes he had sent his daughter to school. 

Our quest for Women’s empowerment will not be realized if girls are not given the chance to equal educational opportunities. Women’s empowerment starts with girls’ education. 

Even though my grandmother doesn’t go to school, she doesn’t deprive my mother, who becomes a teacher.

We are all here today as women because somebody made that commitment, that sacrifice; somebody took a stand for us to go to school.

In Sierra Leone the cost of a school uniform and shoes can sometimes be the greatest obstacle to learning. In many communities, it is also about access to a school.

Kadija is seven and has to walk four miles, cross major a highway seeking an education. Her Parents say they have no more children to spare due to accidents.  Now they keep Kadija at home. 

Hawa attends a school with no building: walls of sticks, a roof of tarpaulins with holes, is the only cover under the hot sun and in the rain. I launch a drawing competition within primary schools in my constituency, to draw a picture of a new Lunsar, and a boy in this school with no building, wins first prize overall.

I am building primary schools in my community so children like Kadija will not have to walk long hours just to access quality learning.

Without your support, we will lose a whole other generation to a life without an education. 

Without being educated, WE would not be possible. The work we do, the contributions we make to our communities, to our countries would be lost forever. 

India cannot tell its story without Kirthi; Nigeria is better with Hawwah Jiddare’s input; and Sierra Leone’s leadership landscape has been influenced by my interventions. 

When women are part of the process of change, we are able to build more resilient communities. 

I work with women now who cannot earn a living, who cannot seek employment 

because they are not educated. They cannot provide for their families, they do not have agency in their home because their husbands say they contribute nothing. They don’t have the confidence to make their voices heard within their communities. This cycle must end. We want to make primary education accessible to more children, otherwise it is girls who get left behind. 

We have assessed areas of priority and have mapped out 10 schools that are critically urgent. We have built one school which serves more than 200 children in Masethle Village. We have started building two others, now at roofing level. We need your support to fulfill this commitment to children, to girls who want to grow up to be women like you. 

Stand up for Kadija and girls like her. Stand up for my grandmother, Adama, and many women like her who didn’t go to school, but make sure so many girls do. Who’s with me?