She is a very intelligent, articulate and eloquent teenager. No matter how fast or tough a question I pose to the group of girls, Aissa, 15, shot back right away with an answer.
Her family is badly affected by the Sahel Food Crisis and her father has gone to Lagos, Nigeria, in search of work after successive years of crop failures.
Aissa knows all about poverty and her chances of lifting herself from it were dashed last year when she was forced to leave school.
"I failed the entrance exam for secondary school twice and the rules are that if you fail twice you have to leave school," she said.
"I tried really hard. It isn't that I don't know the subjects but we had to memorise everything but when I get into the exam I become confused and cannot remember the work," she explained.
For Aissa, it is a little too late for her.
Plan International has been advocating that the government abolish the secondary school entrance exams and switch to a continuous assessment so as to help students like Aissa.
"We have been successful and from October this year the exams will be discontinued in favour of continuous assessment," said Dendi Kiyé, Acting Education Advisor of Plan Niger.
Unable to continue her academic education, Aissa wants to become a seamstress. When she went to Lagos with her parents she started to learn how to sew at a tailor's shop but soon afterwards had to return with her mother.
"I want to learn more. I want to cut and design my own clothes. I would like to sew children's clothes first and then adult clothes."
There is good news and bad news for Aissa. Kiyé said that between 2003 and 2008 Plan set up vocational schools to help lift children like Aissa and their families out of poverty.
"We established three vocational schools in Dosso Region where Aissa lives. We have since reinforced the government's capacity to deliver vocational training and handed these schools over to them. Aissa can go to one of these. They teach sewing as well as academic subjects."
That's the good news but the bad news is that the village of Nakin Fada, where Aissa lives, is an hour's drive from Dosso town where the nearest school is located and given the impact of the Sahel Food Crisis she cannot afford the cost of travel there, nor can she afford to go live in the town or afford the school fees.
Her appeal is for support to help learn this trade which will enable her to become financially independent and not rely on humanitarian aid.
"Yes, I would like to get food assistance but what I really want is to be taught how to sew and get my own machine so that I can make my own money and look after myself and my family."