Freetown | 26 July 2022 | Vertex Media
Fanta Sia Lamin is a 14 years old upcoming musician in Freetown, who has recently jointly released ‘Hands Off Our Girls’ song with her dad, Ishmail Lamin. The song is a girl child advocacy song, geared towards supporting popular HANDS OFF OUR GIRLS campaign by the First Lady of Sierra Leone Madam Fatima Bio.
Fanta Sia Lamin is currently a JSS 3 pupil, attending the Freetown Secondary School for Girls in Freetown. She is passionate about doing music, a dream her father is willing to bring to reality. Her father, Ishmail Lamin is also ensuring that Fanta gets quality education alongside her budding music career.
Growing up as a kid, Fanta had a turbulent past in her childhood. Her mom and dad separated when she was only 3 years old, she therefore grew up in her dad’s care and supervision. Amidst difficult challenges, her dad managed to care for while going college and engaging in some domestic business to raise money for her up keeping.
It was all going well for Fanta and her dad until in 2014 when his dad’s apartment got burnt, which left them homeless. Her dad would therefore asked neighbors to help keep and look over his daughter while he lives with a friend in another community. Ishmail seldomly check on her daughter, who going through some mistreatments by her carer, her dad’s neighbor.
Upon learning this when she hurt on her feet, Ishmail had to sell his computer, phone and a photocopier to secure another apartment to live with his daughter. Living with Fanta alone was difficult for Ishmail, especially when he needed to attend classes at the university. He had to entrust his landlady with his daughter again, to look over her. According Ishmail, her daughter, Fanta experienced the worse maltreatment from his landlady. She was abused, and he is still managing to not revealed what his daughter explained to him.
“I started realizing why we have so many in the streets today. I interviewed some other girls, their stories ranges from rape, assault and torture. Fanta wanted her voice to be heard, those other children want their voices to be heard but there was no way,” explained Ishmail.
When the First Lady of the Republic launched the Hands Off Our Girls campaign, Ishmail and his daughter deemed it necessary to join the campaign and show appreciation to Madam Fatima Bio for her brilliant initiative in ensuring that girls are safe in our society. They decided to show gratitude through music, but their biggest challenge was to get access to the First Lady.
At this point, Ishmail and his daughter Fanta have already recorded two songs, ‘Hands Off Our Girls’ and ‘Save The Children’, which is yet to be released. The ‘Hands Off Our Girls’ song is already out, and a video has been produced for the song, although they are yet to meet the First Lady Madam Fatima Bio.
©️ www.vertexmedia.sl
