Empower girls in Niger for change via education

As we approach the end of the year, we wanted to reflect on all the young girls’ lives you have helped us transform since we started helping the Hampaté Bâ School in 2009. We are so proud of the lasting impact we have made and can’t thank you enough for being a part of it.

At this moment in time, we are providing scholarships for 60 girl students and we urgently need your help to make sure they stay in school and don’t miss out on a life-changing education.

Secondary school offers more than knowledge, it offers hope and opportunity.

Samira is one of our scholarship students who has the chance to study at Hampaté Bâ School thanks to our support. Samira has ambitious goals. Once she finishes high school, she aims to study nursing. Her dream is to qualify as a nurse and work at the national hospital of Niamey. She’s the eldest in a family of eight. Two of her brothers go to a public primary school, while the youngest children are still at home being cared for by her mother.

Samira has a lot on her plate.  She’s up at 5am every day, helping at home and making breakfast for the family, before setting off for school at 7am. In the evening, it’s her job to help cook and clean. If there’s time after all that – and enough light – she will fit in some more studies before bed. Despite the long day, she considers herself lucky; two of her best friends are already married and not allowed by their husbands to attend school.

She’s also fortunate that her family agrees with her going to school. Neither parent has an education; Samira’s father works as a security guard and, besides caring for the younger family members, her mother sells peanuts at the local market.

But Samira has her future all mapped out. After she finishes high school, she plans to raise the money for university by setting up a stall at the main market with her mother.

" I’m so lucky and happy to have a scholarship at Hampaté Bâ School which is near to where I live. My father cannot pay for eight children’s secondary education so he would have to choose which child to send to a good middle school , and being a girl, it probably would not be me. At Hampaté Bâ School we learn a lot thanks to the high level and the private tutoring for students with difficulties. We have good chances to pass our exams, contrary to public schools with overloaded classes where the level is low and very little is learned."

Let’s keep Samira in school ! Help us give these worthy girls the gift of education ! Our work wouldn't be possible without your generous support.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               Thank you !!