I’m from Hastings – a town about 16 kilometres from Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone. I was born in 1997. My mother died when I was seven, leaving me and my two sisters, Olive and Catherine, and my brother Maclean, in the care of my father. Because I was the youngest, I was sent to live with my aunt nearby. Much later, when I was in fi rst year at University, I moved back to live with my father, but sadly he died in 2019, when I was in my fi nal year. My father was from the Limba, one of the oldest ethnic groups in Sierra Leone. They live in the north and north west. My mother was a Krio. The Krio are descendants of freed slaves and some of her ancestors were Nigerian. My dad was an Anglican, my mother a Methodist. I grew up Methodist and went to a local non-denominational primary school in Hastings and attended the Annie Walsh Secondary School from 2010.