Meet Abigail Quina, a struggling mother who has not given up on her dream to be a medical doctor.
“I am in my 30s, and I know that education is not about ages, but it is about what you will learn and do to be a better person tomorrow.”
Decontee: How are doing?
Abigail: I am doing well.
Decontee: How do you feel being a women living in Liberia?
Abigail: On the overall, women face a lot of challenges in this country; society has limited the access which women got to employment. We ask for help and people start to take advantage of us and want to abuse us sexually, but despite all that, women are doing their best to make it. Most women are single mothers nowadays.
Decontee? Where are your parents?
Abigail: My parents are doing great; but I don’t know my mother because everything about me when I was growing up was done by father; he sent me to school and took care of my wellbeing, but I couldn’t complete high school because of some financial institutions. I stopped in the 11th grade class.
Decontee: How is life, living with one parent, especially your father?
Abigail: Things were a bit rough; sometimes when I am sent home from school, I will be home for almost a month before my father got the money to pay my school fees. At that time, my father was a photographer, even though he is still doing his job. My father will go around take pictures before we have something to eat for the day. After I dropped out of school, I felt bad seeing my peers going while I was sitting at home, and after sometimes when I grew up, I told myself that sitting at home will make me cry, knowing that all the plans I had for my life were never to drop out of school. I had plans of becoming a medical doctor and having a better future, but things are different now, and I had to live with what life offers me.
Decontee: What are you doing for living now?
Abigail: I never looked at the fact that I am a high school dropout to sit down home, I got involved with trade learning and currently I am doing tailoring and baking, I am also selling food along the street every Sunday. I have been doing tailoring for about five years now and I am glad that I am not a liability to anyone and I am doing something to support my children’s education and their wellbeing as my father did for me. And I had this plan that I will go to trade school learn and support myself back in high school, So when I saw this opportunity, I took advantage of it and today I am here doing something that I can put myself back in high school.
Decontee: How old are you that you still want to go back to school?
Abigail: I am in my 30s, and I know that education is not about age, but it is about what you will learn and do to be a better person tomorrow.
Decontee: Do you have children?
Abigail: I have four children, and life has not been easy taking care of them. I am encouraging any young females to focus on any opportunity they have that can support their education, because life is not all about how beautiful you are or how young you think you are. I am grateful God that they are in school.
Decontee: Do you anything to say before I let you go?
Abigail: Let me say to every youth that if you have any opportunity to forward your education make use of it, because there is nothing on the streets, instead it wastes your time to do something good for yourself.
