Sharing her ambition for those learning to write

“I understand parents’ panic about the awkwardness of leaving their daughters alone in schools; this stems from fear. I want to build confidence between the rural population and the process of educating girls.” Ameera Al- Saberi

From the countryside – where people are busy with cultivating their land – came Ameera. As a girl she struggled to study but she finished high school in 1999 – she was the first female high school graduate in her rural area. The secondary certificate was not her last step; she had a bigger dream: getting a university degree to become an teacher. She did not complete her university studies due to her family’s opposition to this uncommon ambition. She was unable to live in the life imposed upon the women of Nuba village in Wadi-l-Dhabab  (valley of fog), and Ameera taught the village girls hoping to get a job.

One year after graduating, Ameera’s attempts to teach girls were full of hardships. Every time she began teaching in an empty house in the village that she had rehabilitated and prepared to become suitable for teaching the owners came to claim their home back. The situation continued year after year while she tried to find a suitable place to continue teaching and educating village girls.

After attempts to find a suitable place to teach failed Ameera managed, in 2009, to find a school that enrolled her students to complete the educational process. But the school principal did not accept the idea of ​​adult girl students in his school, and closed the classrooms to prevent them from entering, even though Ameera had obtained the approval of the Department of Literacy.

Ameera did not despair and took the stairway of the school as a classroom. The school principal did not approve and closed the school gates in the face of her students and prevented them from entering. This situation called her to teach her students in the village courtyard near the school. But the villagers refused to let the girls stay in the open to study, and forced the school principal to admit them back. The principal imposed the condition that they clean up and guard the school in return for their admission. This  situation continued for three years.

From 2011 onwards, the number of female students increased day after day for many reasons, most notably their admiration for their teacher’s persistence. When Ameera found herself surrounded by dozens of female students she decided to end the suffering of wage-less work and the humiliation of her students for the sake of continuing. She turned her father’s house into a school for hundreds of female students. Not only was she eradicating illiteracy, but she also opened up training in various fields such as embroidery, sewing and cooking. Ameera describes the house she lives in and in which she teaches the girls as ruins (kheraba); the place does not carry the minimal elements of an educational institute; rooms are threatened by torrents that halt education for days. Teaching aids are lacking. Students write on the walls instead of blackboards, or use hard-to-see writing metal parts, as well as problems of ventilation and overcrowding. The turnout continues to increase, with 486 female students graduating from the school.

Ameera’ objective was not just to get girls to learn, but it was a bigger dream: that she should not be an exceptional case; that the girls’ ambition to learn is not opposed. She declares that she knows perfectly well that she was deprived of university education because she was a case that her village had not perceived before. She understands that the people are cautious of all new things; and thus Ameera, the girl whose environment deprived her of completing the life she wanted, is sharing her ambition and completing her story for those girls learning to write, whose lips are trying to pronounce the alphabet.