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Mariatu Conteh
ID: SLTG017
Country: Sierra Leone
My birthday is 2014-03-20
Status: Vulnerable Child
I want to be a doctor.
I enjoy helping around the house.
My favorite subject is Art.
Mariatu lives in the village of Tombo with her mother and three siblings. Her mother works as a fish trader, and Mariatu helps by fetching water. She enjoys helping out at home. Her favorite color is yellow, and her favorite food is cous cous. Mariatu is excited to start school and hopes to become a doctor one day.
Most parents struggle to provide their families with more than one meal a day, so the cost to send their children to school is not easy to come by. Typically, those who can afford to send one or two of their children to school will choose to send only their sons. Girls whose parents cannot afford to send them to school will be left at home to tend to daily chores, and their smaller siblings while the parents are away earning their daily wages. This lack of education and supervision makes girls just entering adolescence very vulnerable to teenage pregnancy. Girls who have not been given access to education are often left with no option but to marry at young ages to be financially supported by their husbands.