"Hello, I am Upendo, I am 12 years old and I love to dance and skip with my best friends. I live in Ghana with my mother, father and two younger brothers who are 6 and 8 years old. My father is a farmer and grows food to sell and for us to eat and my mother stays at home to look after us all and collects our water.
I stopped going to school when I was 9 because I needed to help my mother collect the water every day for our family. I liked going to school and learning about different things, especially maths, as I was good at adding up but now I can’t go. I help my brothers with their homework sometimes because I miss learning but I get upset that my brothers get to go to school every day with their friends when I can’t. I need to help my mother collect clean water from the well so we can wash ourselves and so my dad can water his crops.
I don't like collecting water because it’s difficult and it makes me not feel very well. The pot that I carry water in makes my back ache on the walk back and my feet have blisters and are sore. My mother has to make me stop on the way home because sometimes I get dizzy from the heat and can’t see properly and if I dropped the pot of water we have to go back and it takes us hours. We also have to get home before it gets dark and otherwise we are not very safe and men shout at us and touch us when we don't want them too.
I wish the well was closer to our home because then it would take us so much less time to collect and I might be able to go back to school again and learn. I wish I could be like my brothers who get to go to school but I am a girl so I have to help in our house. My other friends who are girls stay at home and collect water too, that is just our job.
When I have some spare time I go outside and pretend to teach children because my dream is to be a teacher and help other girls and boys learn lots of different things but my parents say that I need to keep collecting water because otherwise we can’t grow food to eat."
...but with your support, Empower and our fantastic volunteers have built 2 water wells in her local community so now she can fulfill her dreams, and attend school.
On behalf of Upendo, her fellow school friends and their families, we say THANK YOU.
You can help girls just like Upendo by donating, with just one click of a button. Please, empower African girls today, for a freer and happier tomorrow.
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