How to Create Wealth and Avoid Poverty

I was born in a village where there was neither electricity nor pipe-borne water. The villagers were mainly peasant farmers and opportunities were limited.

At the age of nine, a primary school with one teacher was established in the village. All the students were in one room, which had been used as the village church before the school was established.

It was difficult for my parents to pay my school fees. Many of the children in the village could not attend the school because of the school fees. Their parents were very poor.

After two weeks the teacher, whom every villager respected because he was the most learned and informed person in the village then asked us to pay school fees. This was a small amount, but it was large for the poor peasant farmers who used hand-held farming implements. I saw poverty at its highest level at that tender age; I desired to be excluded from life in the village. This could not be achieved until I was fourteen years old.

The village school was growing, and the staff grew to three teachers. We had classes from grades one to five. The school was not approved for grade six, so all those who passed the grade five promotion examinations had to move to a bigger school in the city or a bigger village (the closest one was above five miles away).

In the latter case, it meant that there was a daily ten-mile roundtrip trek to attend classes. My parents considered this to be too risky for a small boy like me since they were not sure whether other parents would be willing to send their children for the next class, which required the purchase of more costly books and additional school fees.

After a long deliberation, I was taken to the city to continue my education. Life was completely different, and I was overwhelmed by the cleverness of the students I met in my new school. Back in the village, because of poverty, I was always engaged in hawking food and participating in farm work, which I did not like at all, but I had to do it. I preferred hawking items from house to house within the village. I had never had the opportunity to sit down and revise any work after school hours because I had always been so tired as a result of going from house to house in order to contribute my portion of the school fees.

The students I met in the new school were very much used to revision of their work and studying together to share knowledge.

Nobody was willing to share any knowledge with me because I did not have much to offer. Also, I lived with my uncle far away and had to trek one mile from my house to the school. Though I did not have to sell any items, I was always tired after the day’s work.

After failing two terminal examinations, I was faced with the option of having to repeat the class or be sent away.

My parents were borrowing money to keep me in this public school (not a private school). They hoped I was going to succeed. They did not want me to join them in the village. Hopes were high that I would pull the family out of poverty. However, I was failing my exams and had little or no clue as what I should do.

To overcome my challenges, I tried staying up late to study, but my uncle would not allow me to light the kerosene lamp. My parents were not sending money for kerosene, and I was not contributing anything in the form of learning how to sew clothes because he was a local tailor. Poverty was very visible in the house even though it was in the city. Food was rationed, and I was faced with starvation and poorer educational performance.

One day, I persuaded my mother to allow me live with my maternal grandmother. I enjoyed the privilege of being the first grandson to my maternal grandmother.

She was ready to help me become the first person to complete primary school education in the family.

She did all she could to persuade my mother to allow her to take responsibility for my life since she was in the same house with my uncle. I moved from one room to another in the same house.

I was able to study for as late as I could, and I managed to pass my examination. At the age of fifteen, I was able to complete my primary school education. The next stage was to go to the secondary school (high school). Money was the major constraint.

My father insisted that I should learn a trade and stop going to school because there was no financial capacity to start a journey of five or six years in the high school with many costly books to purchase. All entreaties from my mother and grandmother failed to persuade him.

He wanted me to be a tailor. He promised to provide me a sewing machine at the end of my apprenticeship. Poverty is not good. Every person should do all that is possible to avoid poverty. Many homes have been destroyed because of a lack of resources.

Children who are brilliant have been prevented from going to school because of poverty and a lack of knowledge on what to do to avoid poverty and create wealth.

Parents should not sentence their children to a life of limitation. There is always a way out if you are willing to try. This book is a tool to be used to change lives and improve the financial situations of families and individuals all over the world.

Back to my story, my mother vowed that she would sell her jewellery and clothes to get me started in school. Her mother, my grandmother, encouraged her. I went to school, and at the time, it was very difficult to pay the school fees.

My mother, having sold all her jewellery and clothes, sold the only cocoa farm she had. This was where money was coming in bits during the cocoa season to pay my school fees. In my final year, my grandmother also sold the only cocoa and kola nut farm she had.

The money was divided into four. My grandmother and her two daughters took three-quarters and gave it to my mother for the payment of my school fees at the high school. Her only son, who had been my guardian earlier on, refused to give her his share.

The pain at home was great after the sale of all the land; poverty increased its intensity at home. I was fully committed to my studies, knowing that so many lives had their hopes tied to my success.

After high school, there was no hope of going to the university. I had to start working in order to send money to my mother and grandmother. My salary was small, but it was highly needed to give life to so many people in addition to maintaining myself in the city. Poverty is wicked and undesirable.

I made up my mind to get out of poverty and become a source of joy and happiness to the family. I appreciated my mother and my grandmother for what they had done to see me out of the poverty circle. I humbled myself and cut my expenses to the barest minimum. The following are some of the things I did: