Making my Voice Heard by Nezha El Masoudi , Morocco
The day when I decided to make my voice heard:
Since I opened my eyes in the world, my father has always had an authoritative character in my life; he is a man of a big size, of which the skin is brown, his facial features reflect seriousness. It is rare that one sees his smile, perhaps it is due to the environment in which he was raised, his mother left him before he reached his first year. His dad, as for him, remarried with another woman, and left him too young opposite of an unknown destiny. When Dad enters at home, everyone keeps silent, I was the fourth child in the mix between three girls and two boys, even if we were playing in the house hall, everyone stops when we would hear his voice.In spite of that, me and my brothers and sisters respect him. He is a Fqih who inculcated the bases of Islamic education in our education. He provided us all which one needed, it worked hard in the field of the trade day and night for our wellness.
By using my father as a reference, in his seriousness, and hard-work, I could overcome the challenge in my schooling, and I would succeed and be classified among the top three of the class each year; but a thing which I missed all these years: the courage and the self-confidence which most children of my age have. I was so timid up to the point which I blushed when a strange person starts to speak to me, this situation lasted until the day when I decided “to make hear my voice”.
In baccalaureate level, I chose the option to study economic sciences in Fez,my hometown. Since it is a discipline in which I will be at ease, the year of the baccalaureate occurred to wonder, classified in 2nd rank in class with a good mark. At home everything ran smoothly, until the day when I informed my father of my decision that I will continue my studies in the preparatory classes of Tangier. My father looked at me with sharp-edged glances reflecting a refusal, I begged him so that he would accept my proposal but his decision was final.His decision was that a girl in our society should never live alone in a remote city of her family, I felt that my future was being demolished right in front of my eyes. After three days of our discussion, I decided not to apply at another school on Fez and to defend my decision, my father vis-a-vis this abstention, folded up himself of his decision and allowed me to continue my studies in Tangier.I was the first between my sisters and brothers who leaves the house to continue studies and it was the day when I decided to defend my dreams and my decisions.
This is how sometimes; cultural,parental authoritarianism and other factors can affect future of a child especially a girl child.