Roumanatou feels confident about the future: she wants to be a role model for success. Maradi, Niger. | © J. Labeur / HI
Roumanatou feels confident about the future: she wants to be a role model for success. Maradi, Niger. | © J. Labeur / HI
When she was barely a year old, Roumanatou received a poorly administered medical treatment leaving her with paralysis of both legs. Thanks to the support of a community leader with disabilities, Roumanatou was enrolled in school. As a result of her hard work and enthusiasm, the 21-year-old is now in 8th grade and making good progress. Humanity & Inclusion has provided her with school supplies and a tricycle to enable her to get around on her own.
As a child, Roumanatou learned to crawl on her stomach, then pull herself using her arms and hips. But life was not easy for her and her parents. Her father ran a Koranic school and was reluctant to send his daughter to a public school. Roumanatou got the chance of a lifetime in 2013 when she met Abdrahmane Zahadi, ex-president of the Maradi Regional Federation of People with Disabilities, who has a disability himself.
"I'm lucky enough to go to school thanks to Abdrahmane Zahadi. He managed to convince my father to enroll me despite his reluctance because my father thought I should go to Koranic school like my brothers. I'm very grateful to this second father. I'll never forget him. Even now, every term, I show him my report cards and, thank God, I always get the best results."
Despite her age—Roumanatou was 10 at the time—the headmaster of the local school agreed to enroll her in first grade. She loved going to school and made rapid progress. To support her studies, HI provided her with French, math and physics textbooks, school supplies and clothes. HI also organized awareness-raising sessions on disability and the rights of people with disabilities at her school.
To become more mobile and independent, HI provided Roumanatou with a tricycle, which has already been replaced once. She uses it to get to school or to meet up with her friends, even though the sandy roads in her neighborhood sometimes make life difficult. Undeterred, she asks others for a push. Because Roumanatou knows the importance of working as a team.
“I've encountered many obstacles in my life, one of the biggest was a lack of self-confidence. But today, thanks in particular to the awareness campaigns, I think I'm in a position to fight for my dignity as a human being and demand the same rights as other people. I also want to stand up for those who have not been as lucky as I have.”
For Roumanatou, education is the best route to emancipation and independence.
"My ambition is to have a decent job so that I can support my mom and my brothers and sisters," she explains. "I don't have any particular career in mind, as long as I can do a job and contribute to the development of my country.”
But even more than the desire to serve her country, Roumanatou is driven by the desire to be a role model for other people with disabilities.
"My biggest dream is to be a strong and independent woman. One day, I'd like to be at the head of a large company where I can provide training for young people with disabilities who want it so that everyone has a chance to develop and prosper."
