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Mariatu Sankoh
ID: SLGM011
Country: Sierra Leone
My birthday is 2010-12-03
Status: Maternal Orphan
I want to be a doctor.
I enjoy playing jump rope.
Mariatu lost her mother when she was 5 years old. Her father was not able to provide for her needs, so Mariatu came to live with her aunt who hoped to give her a better life. Mariatus's aunt is able to do small trading to earn income but is not able to provide for Mariatu to attend school or provide for their family's basic needs. Mariatu has never attended school, but she very much wishes to be a schoolgirl so she can one day become a medical doctor. Mariatu spends her days helping her aunt with household chores, caring for her younger cousins, and even with preparing items for her aunt to sell.
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.