Spotlight: Precious

From Nasarawa State, Nigeria comes Precious, an outspoken 12 year old girl from a family of seven. Precious often felt very uncomfortable at school and at the risk of being bullied by her peers and seniors because she was smaller than them. Unfortunately she missed out on the first selection to become a Goal Champion, but when other girls could not get parental consent, Precious’s resolve and determination shone through.

She told the school Goal Coordinator, Mr. Mayaki: “Sir give me my own consent form as my father will support me. Just tell me what the programme is all about and I’ll promise him I’ll put in ma best”. Unsurprisingly her consent form was signed!

Precious has proven herself to be ambitious and driven. When presented with paper or writing material she will immediately make designs and drawings. When sessions were taken on self identity, leadership and academic excellence she stood up and said: “My role model is my father and I want to be an artist or architect like my father”.

Mr. Mayaki also identified Precious as one of the girls Goal has positively influenced in her conducts. During the first quiz competition she asked: “where are the journalists I want them to interview me- I need to speak on Goal!”

Precious’s challenges in life were solved from the outset of Goal in the school. She has learnt a lot of life skills and claims: “now that I know how to better communicate and handle disagreements, it won’t lead to conflicts and I will get into lesser troubles”. She will be writing her Junior Certificate Exams next year and hopes to go into sciences to enable her achieve her dreams. Good luck Precious!