Breaking the Education barrier

My father married my mother in 1979, he brought her all the way from eastern Nigeria to Lagos at the age of sixteen, my mother was never educated by her parents, because of the “she factor”. After my father brought her to Lagos, my mother told me that she asked my father to be educated but he replied her “ I didn’t married you to send you to school but for you to have children for me” that is the story of so many women in my community, the circle of the discrimination still continue till today.

I was lucky to be born in the city, the need for education influenced my father to send his children to school, right now we have female pharmacist , lawyer, accountant, nurse, communicator and biochemist in my family, my story ends up well but not for many.
Various factors prevent young women in my community from accessing education like micro inequality, lack of respect for women, economic constraint, lack of mentor, lack of confidence etc, the most prevailing is cultural barrier.
Cultural barrier is the greater factor that limits a girl child in my community, women are seen as becoming nothing than wives and mothers, so why will money be spend on them, they are not worth wasting resources on, but you see without the impact of educating a girl child , the society will not operate properly, the girl child are becoming better role models in the society.

Discrimination and lack of respect of the girl child is another factor that that limits the education, we are seem and not heard, our voices are nor relevance and when we speck we are hush, they tell us we don’t have a place in the community.
The impacts of barrier in educating the girl child will lead to increase in illiteracy, unwanted pregnancy, battering, abuse, violent rape of the girl child, but with education, this incident will drastically reduced and the girl child will be able to use various means which technology have afforded us to speak out against these ills in our community.

Education of the female child cannot be over emphasized, it not just to speak out, but to spread the truth that the girl child needs education, we might be termed weak but education and speaking out make us strong. As I look to launch my project “Beautiful She” set to educate one girl child at a time by distributing educational book or toys to enhance learning, i have overcome illiteracy and the girl child syndrome.

Education is the key to development.