Brilliant lady with 6As from WASSCE bakes bread to save from GHC10 wage for university
- Mavis Ayamdo Awinbota is a brilliant Ghanaian lady from Sirigu in the Upper East Region
- The former student of St Joseph Seminary chalked 6A’s, 1B and a C in the 2019 West Africa Senior Secondary Certificate Examinations
- Mavis currently bakes bread to save from a GHC10 daily wage towards her planned university education
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With 6A’s, 1B and a C, from the West Africa Senior Secondary Certificate Examinations, Mavis Ayamdo Awinbota, certainly defied herculean odds to attain such a remarkable feat considering her family background.
Despite being born into an economically disadvantaged family, Mavis Ayamdo Awinbota, combined a horse-like life with her books and a leadership role to earn results that placed her among a quarter of 6As the St Joseph Seminary at Asante Mampong produced in 2019.
However, the future for the Art student looks uncertain because she can’t afford to go back to school owing to visible financial setbacks.
On a busy street at Adabraka in Accra, Mavis is among bakers who knead dough meant for the next day’s bread.
Her job requires hours, most of it, on the feet but her hard work only earns her GHC 60 weekly and a plate of lunch daily.
Mavis looks like just any ordinary girl struggling to deal with living in a city without having a deep pocket but her academic feat says contrary.
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Theghanareport.com writes that Mavis migrated to Accra from Sirigu in the Upper East Region in 2013 in search of greener pasture and better opportunities.
''I was living with my grandmother up there in Sirigu, but I noticed my chances of furthering my education after junior high school were slim, so I convinced my mother to move me here [Accra] after my father died in 2013,'' she told theghanareport.com.
20-year-old Mavis, personally funded her senior high school education by hawking sachet water in traffic during vacation.
''I hawked pure water in traffic during vacation to support my mum who hawks tomatoes to pay my fees and I handle my provisions and other expenses,'' she said.
With huge dreams of becoming a journalist, Mavis has another hurdle to cross after completing SHS and she is already preparing herself for it.
Mavis already has a plan to see herself through journalism school. She has secured herself a job at a bakery, where she is paid GH₵10 a day and manages to save GH₵150 every month.
But it is not enough. With these earnings, she’ll need to save at least 20 months to pay for a semester’s fees for university education.
Mavis’ crippling situation makes her vulnerable to older men who continue to attempt to take advantage of her.
However, she said even though she gets men hitting on her, she never pays any attention to their sexual advances.
''I don’t have a boyfriend and I don’t intend to have one, because that is the least of my worries right now.''
Mavis says she knows things would have been different if her father had been around.
With her dream looking miles and miles away, the more she looks at her savings, she hopes and prays a benevolent organisation or individual will come to her aid to complement her effort to materialise her dream.
In other stories, YEN.com.gh previously reported that at 14, Dorothy Jean Tillman, a brilliant young teenager who resides in Chicago, is already a graduate with two degrees to her credit.
Dorothy Jean Tillman received her bachelor's degree from Excelsior College which also graduated a 72-year-old that same day on July 13, 2018, when she was 12 years.
Prior to earning her bachelor’s degree, Tillman had already bagged an associate degree in psychology from the College of Lake County, in Grayslake, at age 10.
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Source: YEN.com.gh
