By Peagie Foday
Mariama Katie Bangura is a JSS 2 pupil at the St Joseph´s Secondary School in Freetown who has just won the "Brain of Peagie Woobay Essays" competition. The award carries a cash prize of Le 1 million and a trophy.
Born on the 5 July 2001 at Brookfields in Freetown, Mariam comes from a semiliterate family background. That notwithstanding, she says she appreciates the hard work of her parents and their support despite the financial difficulties they face in Sierra Leone to educate their three children.
Living at Tejan Drive at Rokel in a Freetown suburb, she was excited that she won "The Peagie Woobay Scholarship" after writing an essay competition organised in her school in 2013.
She finished her primary schooling at Dunnet Preparatory and Primary school where she sat to the National Primary School Examination (NPSE) in 2012 scoring an aggregate of 305.
The 13-year-old wants to become a lawyer and has vowed to succeed in her educational pursuit especially with the boost The Peagie Woobay Scholarship Fund provides her.
A hard working girl who assists her mother with the weekend domestic chores, Mariama's hobby is reading. The charming girl laughs a lot. She is proud of her form teacher, Mr. J.S. Sesay and her best friend at school, Fatmata S Jalloh.
I was all the more convinced of my choice of Mariama as the "Brain" of my awards when I met her at school during my visit in June. We spoke in English throughout and on our way to Kabala for the “Hear the Girls Out” retreat which the foundation had organised for its beneficiaries, Mariama spoke English with and to the other girls.
I was again proud of her when I spoke with her parents. Her father, Bai Papani Bangura, works at the Cigarette Sellers' Association as the Secretary General and her mother, Haja Umu Bangura is a businesswoman.
These parents are exemplary as they have chosen to naturally support their kids throughout their education. They had just moved from Bombay Street in the east of Freetown, to Rokel. When I asked the mum why they went so far away from the city centre - a one-hour drive journey for young Mariama, the mum told me that Bombay Street was too noisy which she said was affecting their kids’ performance in school.
In her thank you speech, Mariama encouraged her fellow beneficiaries of The Peagie Woobay Scholarship Fund to take their studies very seriously and make good use of the opportunity the Foundation had given them.
The Peagie Woobay Scholarship Fund is a non-governmental organisation founded in March 2013 with the aim of empowering girls in Sierra Leone through education and also giving teen mums a second chance so they do not drop completely out of the educational system.
The Foundation today has 65 beneficiaries countrywide with 22 being teenage mothers, and 43 girls in normal stream schools who are being mentored and motivated, and taught the risks of teenage pregnancy to discourage them from getting pregnant and understand the values of education.
The Foundation pays annual tuition fees, offers a UNI-BOOK package (to help buy books and uniforms) and has provided two free daycares with free food for children of teenage mums in two pilot towns in Sierra Leone - Kabala and Moyamba in the north and south respectively.
In a bid to encouraging girls to read books, The Peagie Woobay Scholarship Fund organised an essay competition for all its beneficiaries this year. Each girl was to read a book from her local library and summarise it in an essay. The 65 beneficiaries under the supervision of the staff of the foundation borrowed books from their libraries, read and wrote essays.
The essays were of varied qualities - from excellent to very poor. Girls in Freetown did far better than those in rural areas. This brought to mind a question about the teaching of English language in different parts of the country.
One essay was quite outstanding. At a glance I could tell Mariama K Bangura's essay would be the best. It was the best disposed and presented essay, paragraph-wise. Almost all the other essays barely had any paragraphing. In reading her essay I could find myself picturing characters in the book she had chosen and follow the story.
Mariama had chosen the book “The Deathly Hallows” by Harry Porter. She summarised her book clearly in two pages in a very well presented essay, in simple concise English, with an introductory paragraph, developing her essay so one gets a vivid picture of the story, before beautifully ending it with the right concluding paragraph giving the reason why she loved the book. For a 13-year-old girl her English was very flowery that enables you to enjoy the book through her eyes.
Together we c1an help so many girls in Sierra Leone. Join me educate the girls through The Peagie Woobay Scholarship Fund – www.pwoobayscholarshipawards.org
Peagie Foday is CEO of The Peagie Woobay Scholarhip Fund
(C) Politico 15/07/14
