Fatuma – Standing up for her community

Fatuma is an 18 years old girl who lives in the Afar regional state of Ethiopia, near a town called Awash Sebat Kilo. Every day she braves the hot and dusty climate to walk 6km going to and from her school. Due to a critical shortage of educated teachers who speak the local language Fatuma had only just finished grade 8 when she signed up for a three-month course given at the local teachers training institute. Upon completion of the course Fatuma started work as a teacher for an alternative basic education programme at Allola rural kebele. An alternative basic education is targeted, to reach the nomadic children who move from place in search of water and grazing land for their cattle. The program works to finish a four years basic education in three years time. Fatuma teaches in classrooms where walls are made of timber wood, which has space wide enough for one to see what is going on outside or in another class. She exclaims, "I It is not easy to get the attention of a student while they can see outside and other students from the other class". The roof is covered of iron-corrugated sheets, the ground is not leveled nor has cement, and there is no door to close or a way to hang the blackboard properly. When heavy wind blows it is common sight for the black board to fall in a middle of class. Fatuma started her job 3 years ago when at the young age of 15 she become one of four teachers at the school. She says she love her job very much and dreams of improving her qualifications and teaching at a regular school. Fatuma is already trying to continue her education through distance education program and hopes the educational bureau will support her in the process. It is easy to see that Fatuma has a warm relationship with her students both in and outside the classroom. Frequently the students encircle her and ask her to help them in different things. Fatuma is not only a teacher but also elder sister and mentor for her students. When the Speak Africa youth media group visited her school she arrived in the compound before the students turned up and helped the group visit the surrounding community, all the time voicing her deep passion for her students, the community. For Fatuma, a successful basic education is possible through an integrated approach that addresses access to water. Tackling the issue of water, she said, could help tackle the school drop out rate. . Moreover, to attract more children to the school Fatuma believes in the need for supply of nutritional provisions to schoolchildren, especially in such times of draught. Generally, the program can be considered a success bearing in mind the meager resource. However comparing the 20,000 birr it roughly costs for establishing the school, investing a small money to improve the class rooms and helping the training of the teachers like fatuma through distance education would make the impact more meaningful.