Frank Jilima, 13, an engineering intellect risk dropping out of school due to the amputation of his right leg.
Frank was born healthy, strong, and smart in Nansongdo, in the Nanumba North District in the Northern region until an unforeseen incident left him without prospects.
The 13-year-old can not walk because he lost his right leg in a motorcycle accident in 2020 when he was returning from the Chamba community back to the family house.
He went to buy sandals and other educational materials to prepare for school and was on a bicycle when the tricycle rider knocked him down.
Frank went through a couple of treatments, the most recent of which was a surgery at the Tamale Teaching Hospital, but his condition did not improve making his life extremely difficult to cope with and subsequently the right leg was amputated.
“I want to be an engineer in the future, so I’m working hard to learn how to do everything I see or envision, but I know my ambition won’t come true unless I have an education,” Frank told DGN Online
The Nansongdo community does not have a Junior High School, and Frank cannot go to Chamba, a 5-kilometer nearby community, to get access to education in his present condition.
If everything had remained the same and Frank had proceeded to Junior High School, his ambition of becoming an engineer would have begun with the current senior high school group.
“Whenever I see my colleagues heading to school without me, I feel depressed and motivated,” he said.
“ I wish I had another leg to help me walk properly to enable me to go to school to become the engineer I’m aspiring to be.”
Assemblymember for Chamba East Electoral Area, Jauri Canad, in an interview with DGN Online disclosed that most students in the Nansongdo community dropped out after primary six since the community lacks a junior high school.
Since 2020, the year Frank was involved in the disaster, about 100 pupils had dropped out of school because the community does not have a junior high school for the children to continue their education.
He indicated that some parents who do not want their children to drop out of school are being compelled to rent rooms in Chamba at a cost o Gh 70 a month for their children to remain in town or to rent a motorcycle daily at a cost of Gh 10 to take their children from Nansongdo village to Chamba for their wards to have access to school.
“Sometimes, youngsters whose parents rented apartments for them in town pretend to attend school while staying in town and doing unpleasant things around them, and eventually they drop out of school,” he said.
He bemoaned the dangers of pupils trekking for more than an hour from the Nansongdo community to Chamba to access education.
“During the rainy season, the youngsters are unable to get to Chamba because their bridge in Nansongdo village becomes flooded and inaccessible. We have made many requests for the bridge to be constructed, but to no avail.”
Frank’s father, Jilima Addo, said that their son was intelligent from birth, but no one can explain how he acquired his super engineering intelligence.
He said he has done all a parent could do since 2020, including spending all of the family savings to bring respite to the young creative, and gifted Frank, but it has been futile.
To treat Frank’s condition, Mr. Addo was obliged to sell a car he used to transport farmers’ goods to the marketplace to raise money for the family’s upkeep.
“We spent over 10,000 cedis on therapy at the Tamale Teaching Hospital over eight months. I am appealing to any individual, group, institutions or organizations to come to our aid to provide an artificial limbs to enable Frank walk and go to school to accomplish his dream of becoming an engineer in future.”
SDG 4
Sustainable Development Goal 4 which Ghana is signed onto calls for ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promotion of lifelong learning opportunities for all but the condition of Farnk could deny this opportunity.
FROM Eric Kombat, Nansongdo