From the fields to the classroom: Abdou's journey to education in Foh village

My name is Abdou, I am 13 years old. I come from the village of Foh. I live with my father, my mother, and my seven brothers and sisters. In addition to my mother, my father has three other wives. In total, I have seventeen brothers and sisters. We mainly live off agriculture.

My father owns a large field a few kilometers from the village. We grow cotton, corn, and tubers there. Along with my brothers, we work every day. My job was to weed parts of the field, to sow; and once the harvest came, I helped gather the corn and cotton. I also applied fertilizer to the plants.

It was exhausting work every day. We started at sunrise and finished at dusk to return to the village. This was every day except Mondays, we also had a vegetable garden. Even now, my brothers are still there and continue to work.

What tired me the most besides the work hours were the thorny weeds as we often worked barefoot and with bare hands without equipment. In the field, there were also bugs. I started working there when I was seven years old. At first, I was excited to join the adults to work, but over the years, I lost that enthusiasm.

"There are many children who are not in school and have dropped out because of agricultural work. Parents prefer to have children work in the cotton fields rather than send them to school. Our role is to raise awareness. Thanks to our advocacy, last year, we were able to send 600 children to bridge schools which are accelerated schools to level up children aged 10 to 14 who have never had the chance to go to school" Moussa Dembélé, a worker from an NGO partner of ACCEL Africa.

In the village, only one of my friends attended school, the other children my age all went to the fields like me. I also wanted to go to school, but I had no choice or say in the matter, so I went to work. It was at 11 years old that my father agreed to let me go to school following the intervention of the project people. I spent nine months in the bridge schools and then joined primary school with the other students.

I am very happy to have had access to education. I started to read and write, I can also do math. When I don't go to school, I do light work. It's really different from my life before. When I grow up, I want to be a teacher. Thanks to the classes I take here, I am on the right path. Next year I will be in 6th grade. I would like to go to high school and then to university.

"We need to raise awareness among parents. An awareness campaign to better explain to them the harmful impacts of child labor. This phenomenon even prevents the intellectual and psychological development of children. In the past, these children were used in fieldwork only during the holidays, but in some contexts, these children continue to perform this work even during the months of October, November, and December. As a result, children will not be able to properly follow classes and eventually they drop out of school in favor of family fieldwork" Ousmane MARIKO, Director of the 'Noumpounio Diarra' school in Fôh

I think all parents should let their children go to school. School is life, it's important to be educated. Today, we are seven out of seventeen children attending.