Afishetu’s Journey: From barefoot schoolgirl to district assemblywoman

I started school late, at age thirteen. It was very difficult to relate to other students since I was the oldest person in the class. Whenever I made a mistake the other students would laugh at me.

Furthermore, I was always falling behind in my lessons. I lived with my aunt in the Karaga District of northern Ghana, and during harvest time – four months out of every year – I was removed from school to help my family with farming. Many times, I came close to dropping out of school as my parents could not take care of the fees. We were very poor. I was even going to school with bare feet.

But my fortunes soon changed. A new teacher named Mr. Muhib took it upon himself to help me. He reached out to me because he believed in my intelligence. When he found out that the teaching at the secondary school I was attending was not up to par, he arranged for me to attend a different school. When I finished junior secondary school, my name appeared on the admission list of a senior secondary school called the Northern School of Business. I was happy to be acknowledged for my hard work, but I knew that my parents could not afford to pay the admission fee.

I am the first and only woman to be elected to the district assembly, along with 23 men.Mr Muhib began soliciting funds to enable me attend the school. While making the rounds, he met a woman named Madam Lawrencia, a member of the Camfed steering committee, and she advised him to apply to Camfed to seek assistance for my education. He did that and Camfed quickly took me up and sponsored my education at the school by paying the yearly fees from 1999 to 2001.

I completed my secondary school education at age 24, and in 2004, Camfed accepted me into the pupil-teacher program.

Since that time, I have been employed as a pupil teacher at a school in a remote region of northern Ghana, about three hours from the nearest town. I am paid a monthly stipend which I rely on for the upkeep of my family, as my husband has returned to school. When I complete the course in 2008, I will be a fully qualified teacher, and I will go on to higher-paying job with the Ghana Education Service.

Learning to be a teacher has helped me tremendously in building my confidence. I used to be very shy and reserved due to my difficulties in school, where I was always behind my peers. But teaching has given me the opportunity to speak in public, and it has greatly improved my ability to communicate with groups. When I returned to my village, Tulinga, I saw that there were a lot of developmental problems in the village; for example, there was no school building. My younger brothers and sisters were attending school outside, under the trees. Also, because the village is only accessible via a dirt road, which washes out during the rainy season, my people often cannot transport their farm products to market, which of course affects their ability to earn a living.

Seeing these problems motivated me to run for the district assembly elections in 2006, so that I could try to come up with some solutions. I ran against two gentlemen, and God being good to me, I was able to win. I think people were impressed by my commitment to community development and my ability to express my ideas for change.

I was inaugurated to the district assembly last year with 23 men. I am the first and only woman to be elected to this assembly. Already, I have been able to lobby the European Commission to construct a school building, which is now completed. I will continue to work to remedy the other problems in my village as well. Some day I would like to run for parliament.

For now, though, I am happy to be finishing my diploma in basic education. As a teacher, I am able to serve as a role model for the girls and young women in my village, and to motivate them to take their education seriously.

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