Mariama Macauley

Country: Sierra Leone

My birthday is 2010-12-07

Status: Vulnerable Child

I want to be a bank manager.

I enjoy doing laundry.

My favorite subject is home economics.

Mariama lives with her mother who does petty trading to earn her living. Mariama's father left the family when she was five years old to be with another woman. Mariama has 2 siblings, and her mother struggles to provide for them as a single mother. Her mother is able to enroll Mariama in school at the start of the year, but she is often asked out during each term when school fees are due. Once her mother has raised enough money to allow Mariama to return to school, she has experienced lapses in her learning. Thanks to her sponsorship, she has been able to continue her education. Mariama wishes to be a bank manager in the future. Her favorite subject is home economics. 

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.