“If you haven’t enough respect to give to both your mother and me, I suggest you give all to your mother.”

I need to tell a story…

At the start of the 20th Century, a woman was born to a village family in Gbombana, Dibia Chiefdom, Port Loko District in northern Sierra Leone. She would have many siblings through her father, her mother and a few step mothers. Her name was Aminata Sesay.

She had little opportunity, but had lots of determination. She faced a century ago the challenges that women, sadly, still face in Sierra Leone. Of her two children, a girl and a boy, only the boy lived past childhood. Tragically, that sadness and the pain of losing a child endure as part of the narrative for too many women in Sierra Leone some three or four generations down the line.

Understandably, Aminata’s son got all her love and benefited from her industriousness, determination and fortitude. Though she never went to school, she had the vision to recognise education as an investment. Enabling her was the love and support of Momoh; her fisherman husband who travelled with her on commercial ventures from Port Loko District, to Bo District, to Kenema District and then to Rotifunk in southern Sierra Leone’s Moyamba District. She did gara (tie dye) side-by-side with selling fish her husband brought in from the rivers and the sea.

Her determination saw her son go through the Government Secondary School for Boys in Bo, study engineering in England, travel to faraway places as an engineer and eventually becoming the Chief Engineer for Water Supply in Sierra Leone. If you have seen the massive bulbous tanks on top of golf tee like stands at Mile 91, Yele, Kamakwei, Rotifunk, Potoru and a few other places, think back to Aminata Sesay’s determination to make her son the best that he could be. It was her son who initiated and delivered the structures which delivered water to so many Sierra Leones through the 1970s and into 1980s. What a shame they weren’t maintained; but that’s a story for another day.

Aminata Sesay’s efforts lifted Gbombana; the village many have never heard of got a son they could lean on. Additionally, and more important in these days, Gbombana gave an example of what a determined woman can do.I first met Aminata Sesay when I was only two years old and got to know her very well and love her very deeply; I am her first grandchild.I have no doubt that her love as a mother fused with great courage, determination, fortitude and the support of her husband made the difference between the lives my siblings and I have enjoyed and the fate many in Sierra Leone and other parts of the world endure.

For me, the moral of the story of my grandmother is clear. Women everywhere need the support of all who want to see development. Their efforts are almost always entirely about their families and communities. Little wonder then that someone a lot smarter than me concluded that “there is no tool for development more effective than the empowerment of women”.

I wish all our grandmothers, mothers, sisters, daughters, aunts, nieces, wives and girlfriends a happy International Women’s Day.

To all the blokes out there, if you haven’t already made yourself worthy of the women in your life, get a move on with sorting yourselves out.

Opening Quote: Aminata’s son – my father Ibrahim Kabia Snr – to my siblings and me.

© Othame Kabia