Oumou Traore's Blog

My life began on the Ivory Coast, in West Africa. The year was 1971. I moved to New York in 1991. In 1999, I graduated from Baruch College in New York City with a bachelor’s in Economics. In 2004, I received a dual master’s degree in both General Education and Special Education from Touro College. In 2014, I completed my Doctorate in Education from Grand Canyon University. “Bully Mother” is the story of my freedom. I was born into poverty. As soon as I became aware of my surroundings, I wanted to improve what I saw around me―to change my circumstances for the better.

Today’s issues in the Ivory Coast and why we should care is to be aware and take a stand by actively deciding that ignoring social issues in other countries should no longer be optional.  Recognizing that our planet Earth is a round place and as a result, they should be no corners is important in caring for others. Comprehending that what goes on in one country affects others directly or indirectly. In the past, most of us were in the dark in regard to social issues in other countries.  That is no longer the case, today with the improvement of technology; learning about other countries’ social issues is at our finger tips. The choice is ours to care or not to because we can no longer say we were not aware of the situations.

Today social issues in the Ivory Coast are the lack of security, the increase in the numbers of homeless Ivorian children, and the welfare for the Ivoirian people.  Four month ago, the Ivory Coast was liberated from a decade of toxic leadership. During that time, Ivoirians were subject to financial hardship as well as genocide. As a result, many children became orphans with no one to care for.

Ivorian children are orphans because their parents were assassinated during the genocide. Since they have no one to care for them, they are on their own. Children as young as five year old are homeless and have to provide for themselves. Unlike in the United States where agencies such as the administration for children services provide support to children in needs, orphans in the Ivory Coast are on their own to survive. As a result, they are subject to sexual predators that prey on them during the night time exchanging food and other necessities for sex. We should help stop the victimization of children by donating to organizations that will provide the necessary support such as shelters, and food for them because that is the right thing to do.  As caring individuals, we can no longer say we were not aware of the situation.

In addition, during the recent genocide which ended in April of 2011, most if not all the survivors of the genocide lost their real properties such as homes, other valuable possessions and their jobs.  Although they are in the process of rebuilding their lives, finding employment has become more and more difficult if not impossible. Even though most Ivoirians are intellectual with higher degrees, they live in despair because they cannot secure employment anywhere. They live without knowing where their next meals will come from.

The current social issues in the Ivory Coast can be improved by making donations to agencies such as the Save the Children, Red Cross, and UNICEF to help alleviate poverty and build shelters for orphan children as well as adults in need. We can do something and we must make a conscious effort to help others.

I was fortunate to learn at a young age that the only way out of extreme poverty was through education. I entered school later than other children my age because I was living with my grandmother in a village where a girl’s education was not as important as a boy. I went to school for the first time at the age of eight and I was placed in first grade.

During that time, I was always told by adults that education is a good skill to possess. I did not understand the meaning behind that phrase. I used to cry going to school from the first through third grade because I had to walk about four miles to go to and from school.

It was not until the fourth grade that I read a literature by Bernard Dadie, a writer from the Ivory Coast, that I was able to grasp the meaning that education is power. Bernard Dadie helped me change the way I viewed education forever. His main message was that the only way out of poverty was through education.

After reading his writing, I decided to take my education seriously. I decided to do my part in order to escape the life of poverty.

As a child, I lived in extreme poverty in the Ivory Coast and I disliked the situation. I wanted to get out of it. At one point, I was at risk of becoming a drop out involuntary and because of that understanding, I dodged being a drop out. I attended night school instead of dropping out.

I was in night school at the mercy of a stranger who was also a principal at my younger brother’s school. I was offered to work as a lunch aid doing lunch duties during the daytime in order to attend school for free at night as a way to further my schools. I was fourteen. I accepted the deal because it was my only option to stay a passenger on the train of education. I did the requirements needed to continue going to school in the middle of difficult and challenging situations.

The hard times paid off because when I got to the United States, I was able to build on those early skills by learning English. Since I was under the age of twenty one, I attended free public school. Although I was in the middle of an arranged marriage, I knew that the only way out was through education.

I took my studies seriously. Doing so allowed me to finish high school, college, and receive advance degrees. Only through obtaining those advanced degrees was I able to exit poverty and the arranged marriage I was forced to enter at the age of eighteen.

Thus, education allowed me to obtain the skills necessary to become financially independent and live in dignity.  Education permitted me to rise above all obstacles that were meant to destroy me and live in destitute.

thebrightcontinent:

The New America Foundation and CNN have partnered on a channel exploring innovation outside of the US. I’m part of the team committed to sharing information on the pace and shape of change around the world. Here’s my first piece:

The global explosion of mobile phone technology has spawned a host of applications, products and services facilitating development outcomes from financial inclusion to improved maternal health. While these innovations have proven an essential lifeline for the world’s most vulnerable, most ignore the basic function of a mobile phone - its voice capacity. 

A service called “I-Call” aims to solve the problem of education in Africa and other developing regions of the world by getting back to basics.

The organization helps to produce innovative educational modules that use phone calls to impart useful information on topics such as antenatal care giving or environmental stewardship. Callers in Kenya, for example, will hear a story featuring two household workers debating how and whether to separate their trash. The script, titled “Gold from Garbage,” takes a chatty,telenovella format, intended to promote the country’s nascent recycling program.

The service provides a unique twist on traditional - and frustrating - automated voice menus. While many customer service calls require users to punch numbers and symbols in search of a live voice, “I-Call” is transforming that head-banging experience into a meaningful development solution. When prompted, listeners can navigate a “choose your own adventure” set of options that invites users to complete the story.

The system is notable for bypassing traditional pedagogical methods such as textbooks and lectures as well as traditional media such as radio, print articles, or pamphlets distributed by eager NGOs. The voice-based system builds on the familiarity of oral storytelling, and can reach individuals with specialized learning needs who may have left the formal education sector years ago.

“We deal with awareness raising, attitude and behavior change, things like that,” says Arndt Bubenzer, whose Common Sense consultancy developed the software behind I-Call. “We asked: How do we get an m-learning tool out to a large number of people without them being able to read or write?”

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What I want to do in the Ivory Coast is to improve the educational system. I want to create a system that provides opportunities for all children to attend free public schools. I want to create laws that require children to attend school with available resources to support them throughout their educational careers.  I also want to build homes for children in need of adequate shelters.   

Creating and implementing educational and social programs, such as providing acceptable homes or shelter for people in need, is what I consider being an activist. Doing so will allow me to positively influence people’s lives in ways so that they will understand they do not have to tolerate anything that does not bring freedom, happiness and joy.

As an activist, I want to be able to make people understand that poverty is not acceptable. I found that many people tolerate poverty because they honestly believe that they can’t do anything about it.  The lack of decent educational programs is one of the main reasons people permit poverty. 

For example, when I was a child growing up in the Ivory Coast, educational and social  resources available to help people in need were so slim that I was denied the ability to get free public education. As a result, I attended a private night school in order to further my education.  

Moreover, unlike in the United States where children are required to attend schools by law with regulations reinforcing that demand in the event parents do not send their children to school, in the  Ivory Coast that decision is left to the parents. Children go to school based on their parent’s abilities and desires to send them to school. 

Therefore, if parents decide not to send their children to school, those children do not attend school and they grow up to become uneducated individuals living in poverty without the capacity to change their circumstances.  My goal is to teach them to understand that education is a powerful force that can eliminate poverty. Thus, making people comprehend that education is the only true vehicle that can transport them out of poverty.

Improving the educational system in the Ivory Coast by providing every child with the opportunity to attend school with available resources to support that child throughout his/her educational career is a necessity. In addition to creating educational programs that will improve children’s lives, my aim is also to start and implement social programs, such as building homes for the needy children because many of them live in miserable, unsanitary and unsafe conditions and still manage to do what is required in school if they attend.  I want to be able to provide housing for children and their families.

Hence, starting a movement that improves educational and social systems, especially in the Ivory Coast, is my objective.  Although the Ivory Coast educational system failed me many years ego, the only reason I was able to achieve all the things that I attained was through education.

Female Genital Mutilation is a horrific, cruel and painful event that happens in parts of the world where women and girls are oppressed. In Mali, the place where I was circumcised in order to be accepted as a member of my tribe, the society mindset is that circumcising girls in childhood prevents them from becoming promiscuous as adults.

As a result of that belief system, people in that part of the world impose circumcision on girls in order to control their future sexuality.  They believe that girls are to be tamed during childhood so that in adulthood, they can become submissive to their husbands. Being biddable is considered the trait or characteristic of good wives.

In another word, according to them a girl’s only purpose in life is to become someone’s good wife.  The definition of a good wife, according to them, is someone who abides to her husband’s desires while having no sexual desires of her own because circumcision prevents women from enjoying sex.  

To make sure that girls remain oppressed, they are denied education. Most girls do not attend schools which make it easier to force them into unwanted marriage at a young age - to men that are already married and much older than they are with wives and children of their own.

In my own situation, I was not given any explanation for the genital mutilation. I was just told that it was good for me. Nothing more. Nothing less. But as I grew older, I realized that the only reason for the female circumcision was to please girls’ future husbands within the society.

For example, in my childhood, I observed many young girls becoming wives to much older men. At times, their husbands were two or three times their ages and were already married with children as old as their teenage wives because polygamy is also part of the culture and there is nothing wrong with men marrying as many wives as they can afford.

For most circumcised women, marriage is unbearable; it is both emotionally and physically agonizing. On one hand, having sex is painful and intolerable. And on the other, they are forced into loveless situations in which the husbands are the only one happy with the outcomes.  

Genital mutilation is intended to scare girls in their lifetime.   In childhood, they are circumcised; in adulthood they are forced to marry someone they don’t like and the most painful thing about that is they are brainwashed to believe that the best they can ever become in life is to be someone’s wife.  

Most women in that society live and die without knowing or enjoying their lives.  I hope that writing my story will help others understand what women experience as a result of oppression and lack of education because without education, they accept genital mutilation as a way of life and die in misery. I wrote Bully Mother to let those women know that it is possible to have a better life after circumcision.