girl power!

Here's an article worth reading. This girl sounds like she has a LOT of spunk and determination. A noteworthy role model for young students across the world.

Fatuma Omar Ismail: A scholar born into squalor

Quoted from the text:

"School is not a priority at Dadaab – girls don't have an equal chance," says Ms Wachuka. "Fatuma has triumphed in very difficult circumstances."

From the age of 12 she "had a dream" of going to a national school in her host country and wasn't going to be put off by naysayers who told her that refugee girls could not go. "It can be done," she says. "I've done it."

Her eventual aim is to study medicine and one day return to Dadaab as a doctor. "If there is peace in Somalia," she adds, she would like "to go and help people there where there are not enough qualified people."

The teenager understands that she is a role model and has a simple message for other young Somalis.

"You know education is the key to success. First go to school, work hard and choose a career. Work hard, aim higher and be nice to people."

...

She admits that her new life is not always easy. She misses her seven brothers and sisters and speaks to her mother by telephone only once a month. Her scholarship pays for boarding fees and uniforms but nothing more. There was no money to pay for the nine-hour bus ride to Dadaab during the Easter holiday, so she stayed in Nairobi.

Faced with the brightest girls in Kenya Fatuma is no longer "number one". In her first term, she lagged behind in the two national languages, English and KiSwahili.

But there is plenty of reason to think she will catch up. Remarkably, she came near the top of her class in computer education, having never seen one before; and has taught herself to swim butterfly, having never been in a pool before reaching Nairobi. But it's not enough for her.

"I don't feel good. In my school I used to be the best," she says. This is followed by a note of polite defiance that lands somewhere between a promise and a warning: "They are not brighter than me. They are just better at the moment."