Maryam B. Hassan

Mrs. Maryam Hassan in her office (Courtesy teacherTokunbo Digital camera)

Who a hero is was the first question that came to my mind, when my teacher Mrs. Tokunbo Adebisi, first introduced the My Hero Project to my class and who a Hero is to me, then I asked myself, who is a hero? To me I see a hero as someone who stands to see you free!!

My hero is a teacher and a mother who has shown great concern and interest to see me learn and to become free intellectually in this world. My life is like a book documented with the ridicules of existence. Growing up as a little child wasn’t easy for me because my mother was the only one then there for me. My childhood has been one with which I had felt terribly sad and depressed that many a times I wished I was someone else. I was bored with the normal processes of life, because I did not only feel depressed but inferior and poor. My mother struggled so hard to see to my daily needs and my education, but it came to a time, when we could no longer make ends meet and I was forced not by anyone but by poverty to stop going to school, to learn a trade as there was no one to help me pay my fees.

While serving as an apprentice in my local community I discovered that a trade wasn’t the ultimate for me, but that I needed a good and sound formal education if I were to help contribute meaningfully and positively to my community and the society at large. How to go about it I discovered but who to help finance my formal learning became my problem. I prayed to God to help send someone my way, so as to help me out, and deep down within my heart I knew that my desire will be made accomplished and Mrs. Maryam B. Hassan was the person He sent to help me execute that desire.

Through out my life and the problems I have faced. I never thought that loving and passionate people besides my mother existed. The first time I met her some thing within me told me I was free, and ever since then my whole life has taken a new dimension.

My hero Mrs. Maryam B. Hassan was born on the 3rd of December 1958 at Sabon-gari Zaria Kaduna State of Nigeria. She had her secondary education at St Louise Secondary School Zankwa from 1972-1976, and then proceeded to Ahmadu Bello University Zaria where she obtained her first degree in 1978-1981. She later went to Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where she had her masters degree in Education from 1986-1988. She worked with the College of Education, Sokoto state from 1982-1998 and also with the Education Resource Centre F.C.T. Abuja Nigeria from 1998-2005 and now the principal Government Secondary School Garki, Abuja Nigeria, from 2005 to date. Being an academician and a scholar Mrs Maryam B. Hassan has taken the responsibility upon herself to seeing that I become learned and educated by insuring that all I need in the course of my learning is made possible to me and also to see that I become successful in my life, which has made her my Hero.

From her house

Mrs. Hassan in her efforts to ensure sound education through the use of technology has made it possible for the school to constantly get connected to the Internet, encouraged science students to construct local machines for exhibition (prizes have been won) and also had bicultural relationships with other countries like China etc. She was, on the 10th December 2006, honoured with an award in recognition of her endless contributions to the Educational Development of her society by Usuh Progressive Union (Women's Wing)Abuja.

She is indeed my Hero because in my community and the society at large, education is considered the easiest way to freedom, which was once stolen away from me because I was poor, has been given back to me by her. She is my Hero and will forever remain my stepping stone towards true accomplishment.