Growing up in Europe and the United States could be a sweet period for a child. And this could also be the case for an African Child in Africa, but this is not the case for class 3 pupil Sia Dormi (6) Mohamed Kamara (9) Bah Kamara (6) Fatmata Sesay (6) all of the same class.
Excavating sand and trekking a distance of 200 metres with the sand on their heads to their point of sale is how these children labour to compliment their parent’s efforts to raise fund for their school fees.
This business, during and after the rainy season, is a thriving business for these Children of #23 Hannah Street Shelmingo in Bo. The fathers are landless farmers, with the mothers being petty traders. The children told Awoko that a mound of sand is sold at “Le 10 000” to the local people within the Shelmingo area.
“This is what mama and papa take to add to what they get to pay our school fees” Sia told Awoko. This state of the children may be a case of facing hard reality. Still, scores of the children of Bo work alongside their hard-times bitten single parents breaking stones along the Koribondo-Bo Highway, though due to shyness they could not talk to Awoko.
This may come in as an indictment against the Non-Governmental-Organizations that abound in the city. Just last week, a child investigated to be belonging to the Help-a-Needy-Child-International was shot by the police on the foot. The police accused Chernor Mohamed Barrie (17) and two others of having broken into somebody’s home and carted away their assorted house wares and apparels and were carrying them on their heads when the police tried to interrogate them whilst on a night patrol. It is alleged that the now hospitalized boy tried to use a machete on the patrol superintendent Corporal Stevens.
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