Lighting the Path for the Girl I Once Was: Finding Peace Through Education

Peace.

It’s a word that sounds simple until you’ve lived most of your life fighting to find it.

For me, peace has never just been the absence of war. It’s the presence of dignity, the freedom to learn, to dream, to exist without fear. It is the sound of a young girl’s laughter in a classroom instead of her cry in the streets. It is the sight of a child holding a book instead of a tray of goods under the scorching sun.

My name is Eniola Oluranti, and I am a living testimony of how education can transform pain into purpose, and how peace begins when a girl is empowered to write her own story.

A Childhood Stolen, A Dream Still Alive

I was born into a humble family of nine in a single room. Life, for as long as I can remember, was a struggle, one that revolved around survival, not dreams.

When I was seven, I fell sick repeatedly. My grandmother, out of fear that I might not survive under my parents’ roof, took me to live with her. That moment marked both a rescue and a beginning.

My grandmother was poor, yet she was the richest woman I ever knew, rich in courage, faith, and wisdom. She sold fruits, firewood, and everyday goods just to make ends meet. I became her little helper, her companion, and soon, her business partner. I started hawking at eight. Every day, I would walk long distances with trays on my head, balancing fruits and dreams I didn’t yet understand.

But my grandmother believed in education. She would tell me, “If you can read, you can lead.”

She couldn’t afford much, but she gave me a love for learning that poverty couldn’t kill. She taught me to read Yoruba storybooks and to write letters to my father. I remember tracing words with my fingers and feeling like I was touching a different world.

Even then, education was not easy. I worked to earn every coin that took me to school. Some days, I sold all my goods before class; other days, I returned home crying because men twice my age had harassed me on the streets. Some would spank me playfully; others touched me in ways that still make me shiver when I remember. I was just a child trying to survive.

Still, I went to school because my grandmother said knowledge was the only thing no one could ever take from me.

When she died, my world collapsed. I began moving from one house to another, living with relatives and strangers, each experience carving more scars than the last. Yet somehow, I kept chasing school like it was oxygen.

The Many Wars a Girl Fights

If peace is freedom, then girls in poverty live in a war zone every day, not one with guns and bombs, but with hunger, exploitation, and silence.

In secondary school, I often went to class hungry, sat on the bare floor because I couldn’t afford a chair, and walked miles under the sun just to attend lessons. I faced a different kind of violence, one that is quiet but cruel. The violence of being invisible. The violence of being told you’re a girl, and therefore, your dreams are less urgent.

When I was raped while looking for a job, my world broke.

I remember feeling dirty, angry, and worthless.

But I didn’t give up. I kept working, saving, and supporting my younger siblings. I taught them that education could give them what life denied us, choices.

Even in the university, peace didn’t come easily. I encountered lecturers who used their power as a weapon. One in particular threatened to fail me because I refused his advances. I cried myself to sleep for weeks, wondering if all my struggles would end in vain. But I refused to trade my dignity for a grade.

Somehow, I made it through. I graduated, not because life became easier, but because I had learned to fight for peace in the smallest, most personal ways.

The Turning Point: From Survival to Purpose

After graduation, I looked back on my life and realized something: I survived everything I went through because one woman, my grandmother, believed in me and gave me access to education.

If her small act of faith could save one life, what could happen if we multiplied that hope a thousand times? That question became my turning point.

I began paying school fees for children from poor backgrounds. I started buying notebooks, uniforms, and sandals for kids who wanted to learn but couldn’t afford it. One by one, I began helping them the way my grandmother helped me.

Soon, this personal act of giving grew into something bigger: a movement to create opportunities for out-of-school children, especially girls living in slums and remote communities.

In Nigeria alone, over 10 million children are currently out of school, the highest number in the world. Many of these children are girls, and many live in conditions that make learning seem impossible.

According to UNESCO (2024), more than 250 million children globally are out of school. Behind those numbers are names, faces, and dreams fading away in silence.

Every time I meet one of those children, I see myself in their eyes. The fear, the hunger, the uncertainty, but also that stubborn spark of hope that refuses to die.

Peace Is a Classroom

When I stand before a classroom full of children in slum communities, I see peace being rebuilt, not through treaties or negotiations, but through pencils and paper.

Peace, to me, is a girl writing her name for the first time.

It’s a child realizing they have the right to dream.

It’s a teacher showing up, even when the school has no roof or chalk.

Our work goes beyond giving out materials. We create spaces where children feel safe, seen, and supported. We connect them to mentors and storytellers who remind them that education is not just about books, it’s about identity, confidence, and hope.

Every scholarship we aim to give, every child we empower, is an act of peace-building.

Because when a girl is educated, she is less likely to fall into early marriage, less likely to face abuse, and more likely to raise children who value peace.

Education is the most powerful tool for peace, and girls are the most powerful bearers of it.

A Vision for a Peaceful Future

I dream of a future where no child is denied learning because of poverty or gender.

A future where classrooms replace street corners, and textbooks replace trays of goods.

A world where girls in remote areas can see women like me and believe, “If she did it, I can too.”

This is why I am building toward creating a free learning center, a safe space where girls can access both formal and vocational education. Where they learn life skills, confidence, and leadership. Where they’re taught not just to survive, but to thrive.

My goal is to see children who were once labeled “hopeless” grow up to become teachers, engineers, artists, and changemakers. I want peace to begin in their hearts and ripple into their homes, their communities, and the world.

What Peace Means to Me Today

Peace, for me, is no longer a distant dream; it’s a daily practice.

It’s choosing to forgive those who hurt me, not because they deserve it, but because I deserve peace.

It’s waking up each morning knowing that my pain has found purpose.

It’s seeing a girl in a torn uniform smile because she can finally go to school.

Peace is when a child says, “Aunty, I want to be a doctor,” and I can tell her, “You can.”

Peace is when we give hope a face and a name.

My Message to Global Leaders

If I could speak to the world’s leaders, I would say this:

1. Investing in education, especially for girls,is the most sustainable path to global peace. You can build walls and pass laws, but if a girl is hungry, voiceless, and uneducated, conflict will always find a way back. We must make education free, safe, and inclusive for every child, especially in underserved communities.

1. Support grassroots initiatives, people like us who understand the realities on the ground because we’ve lived them. Fund teachers who show up in classrooms without roofs. Empower local women who carry peace in their actions every day. Peace is not a document. It’s a daily choice, one that begins in how we nurture our children.

For the Girl I Once Was

Sometimes, when I visit communities to distribute school supplies, I find myself looking for one girl, the one I used to be.

She’s the little girl hawking on the roadside, barefoot and tired, balancing fruits on her head and hope in her heart.

When I see her, I smile and whisper,

“You made it, my dear. You didn’t just survive; you became the light.”

Everything I do now is for her, and for the millions like her who still wait for their chance.

Peace, I’ve learned, isn’t given. It’s built, one girl, one book, one dream at a time.

Peace Is the Freedom to Learn

In a world torn apart by inequality, conflict, and poverty, I believe education is the thread that can stitch us back together.

Peace is when a girl wakes up without fear.

Peace is when every child, regardless of their background, holds a pen instead of a weapon.

Peace is when stories like mine are no longer common.

I don’t know what tomorrow holds, but I know what I’m fighting for, a world where peace begins in the classroom and spreads to the streets.

And when I see that world, when I see children learning freely, safely, and joyfully, I will know that the girl I once was didn’t suffer in vain.