“My name is Akanko Francisca and I am 14 years this year, and I am a pupil of Azenab Girls Primary School. I live with my mother and my siblings at Akabueli Usabsa.

The community where I live is good and bad. The good is that the community helps each other. If there any problem you can go to the chief palace. You have friends and family too, and if you don’t know something, they will teach you and you can depend on them. Even if you don’t have parents, your sibling and your uncles will take care of you like their own and people around will also help you.

They will take you in like their child. The bad thing is that children drop out of school and some are learning how to rob.

For me though, I like school. I want to become a lawyer when I grow up!

I want to become a lawyer for the poor and the needy, to help innocent people achieve success. The rich men will sometimes come and see land and will just buy it without the owner’s permission, so I want to stand for them. I just want Ghana to be a better place.

At school, I like to study Maths and Science, but I love reading! I love reading because whenever the teachers are not around, I feel bored. But when I take the books out and read it’s like I’m talking to my friend. Reading also helps me speak good English – if I didn’t read, how would I know how to? If  I didn’t go to school I wouldn’t know how to read, write or speak as well as I do.

Going to school is like going to achieve your dream.

In school, we now have many books. Storybooks and exercise books, like The Greedy Lion, The Game between Rabbit and Tortoise, Stay Away and Alcohol Abuse, Tutu the Friendly Cat, The King of the African Jungle and Crisis for Both Boys and Girls. We have plenty of all kinds of books. My favourite book is Everyday Values because it teaches us about respect, which is very important.

When I get a book I love, I go and read either if in class, but if they are making noise, I will sit in the library or I will sit at the trees and read. Somewhere quiet where no one will disturb me.

If I went to school and there was not a single book, that would make me feel very bad! Because I would feel like I did not have any friends with me.

Thanks to players of The People’s Postcode Lottery for their ongoing support that helps us to send books to schools like Francisca’s.

All Images © Book Aid International/ Natalija Gormalova. With thanks to AfriKids.

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