Octubre 20, 2008 - 10:36am — bamine
From no where to some where
Born in a small rural town
Raised up by my Mom and Dad teaching me about values and respect
Live below the $1 a day
Parent working very hard to make me educated
Wake up every 6am in the morning at age 7 working 6 miles every day to go and return from school because there is no money to take bus
Having one brother and three sisters is a big challenge to my family
Mom do little business and Dad a Teacher
Dad and Mom have an ambition for us not to be in the situation they are presently
Trying to up keep us and let us don’t enter in to bad lives because of our parents situation
There come the saddest time of my life when the rebel war hinted our small town
Small boy at age 8 ran away with parents and work 110 miles to the closet city to seek refuge.
Running with parents which parents don’t have any money in pocket to upkeep us which forces me to involve in begging and trying to up keep the family instead of my parents
Hanging around begging, late night unfortunately I was captured by an underground rebel who took me to their camp which was about 30 miles off the city and use me as a spy to collect information to have a successful attack
Giving them all the information I was then adopted and serve with them for 1year
Living my Mom, Dad, Brother and Sisters in disaster and worries, not knowing that I am under used, misused, abused and refused by the rebels
Been released from the rebels a year latter, trying to trace and find my parents, I then find out that they have all gone to the capital city of the country
I then took a bus with only Le 30,000 ($10) which i got from the last attack i went on
Thank God I was able to trace them
Been in the city and trying to re-start life again with parent and continue my education, I was blessed that my Dad got a good job and my Mom still continue her little business whilst my brother still going to school and my Elder sister 17yrs was pregnant because she was raped by the rebels.
Life was really tough and not easy for me again but my parents said hold on and be steadfast, because the rebel bush life was 97% in me and i was able to handle up again with town life....
5years later i was blessed to have an opportunity which made me to step up to the national stage and start to speak out for children like me who were suffered directly by the war and were also used like me.
Continuing this advocacy which people were seeing it as an ideal and frustration things, I still perceiver and be focus.
In 2005 When I received a letter from my school principle that “Bamine you have been invited by the government to deliver the keynote address at the commemoration of the 2005 Day of the African Child”
I was amazed and astonished at the same time, but been confident and focus I did it very well and that lifted me and made me to be well known nationally.
That same 2005 I was privilege to be elected by the children of Sierra Leone through the government to serve as their President which was a great honor for me.
A year later I think about all the odds I have gone through and the achievements I have made and I said to my self that “ You can come from no where and go some where if you perceiver and focus”