Educate A Girl: Fati's Story

by Emma Douglas

Fatimata Yakubu is a 26 year old woman from Tamale, northern Ghana. She is a practicing nurse. She is an educated woman. She is a mentor to young girls. She is a resilient and extraordinary person. She is an advocate for change. She is a voice for those whose voices are too often silenced. She is a force to be reckoned with. 

Fatimata Yakubu - one of the most inspiring women we've met!

Born thirteenth of her parents’ fourteen children, Fati knew from a young age that she wanted to be an educated girl. She watched as her older brothers and sisters finished primary school and then went no further with their educations. They were not alone: girls in the northern regions of Ghana complete, on average, just four years of education. Fati knew that she needed to complete Junior High School (JHS) and Senior High School (SHS) so that she could one day realise her dream of becoming a nurse. The struggles that she went through to go to secondary school and nursing school were incredible, and to many they would seem insurmountable. She describes it herself - "it was hell going through education."

Fati was aged just 11 years old at JHS when she started selling chewing sticks in order to pay for her school fees and her uniform. She left her house at 3am to sell her sticks, returned home, ate, bathed, went to school, and then sold the chewing sticks for three more hours after school, before finally returning for the night at 8pm. She was, at that young age, a part of the 50% of rural children in Ghana who are engaged in economic activities. She was one of the million children under the age of thirteen in the country who are considered child labourers by UNICEF. 

Fati continued with this work throughout her secondary education. Her mother had to sell all of her clothes and most of her belongings in order to get more money for school fees. When Fati graduated from JHS and made it to SHS, she had a 30km round trip to get to school every day. And every day she walked there. And every day she sold her chewing sticks before the walk. And every day she skipped lunch, because her profits could only pay for her uniform and her fees. There was never anything left over for her food.

After graduating SHS, aged just 16 years old, Fati went to Accra. There she worked as a kayaye; a porter who works in the markets, carrying heavy loads on their heads for very little money. They’re often young girls from the northern regions. After a year of this, she became extremely sick and was forced to return home in order to seek treatment.  The next few years of Fati’s life were hard. She worked in an orphanage in Tamale, all the while studying for exams and saving her money so that she could one day study nursing.

In 2009, Fati finally found out that she had been accepted to nursing school. She wept for a week. She couldn’t afford the fees. She had been working non-stop for three years. Her mother had sold everything; she was managing those days with just one skirt and one shirt. Everything seemed hopeless, and Fati’s parents were urging her to give up, to get married, to forget about becoming a nurse. But then Fati heard about Campaign for Female Education (CAMFED), and her prayers were answered. They paid half of her nursing school fees. She was almost there.

Fati got her nursing certificate in 2011. But she is not just a practicing nurse these days. Fati spends all of her free time ensuring that more girls get the education they are entitled to. She has set up girls clubs. She runs study groups. She mentors young girls who are struggling without role models. She delivers community sensitisations on maternal health. She started her own programme – Safe Delivery Priority for All – about the importance of giving birth in hospital. Last year, she was invited to an International Women’s Day event in Cambridge, the United Kingdom, where she shared her inspirational story. She was selected in 2015 to go to Accra for the Young African Leaders Initiative, a programme started by the Obama administration, where she learned about civic leadership. She is a whirlwind.

Fati firmly believes that an education is the most important thing a girl will get in her life. It will be, ultimately, her only inheritance. She points out that, at the end of the day,

“Nobody can ever snatch your education away from you. You can’t lose your knowledge. Sometimes it’s all you have.”

Any global change starts locally. Fati knows this. She hopes that the young women she has influenced and mentored will go on to influence and mentor other young girls. She hopes that the changes she has made in her community will translate to a regional level, to a national level, to a global level. She hopes to one day see a parliament in Ghana where women have the same number of seats as men. Because, as she says...

“The hand that stirs the pot can equally rule the nation.”  

Jamila - nurse, educated woman, mother, excellent pot-stirrer, joker.