“Fear of another attack”: This Nigerian initiative is encouraging displaced parents to re-enrol their children in school

On a sunny Saturday afternoon in November 2021, Nusaibatu Aliyu, 34, was napping when news of bandits raiding the community primary school her three children attended jolted her awake and caused her to run barefoot around Brijingo, their community in Goronyo Local Government Area of Sokoto State.

The raid came three weeks after an attack that had cost the community lives and several properties. Luckily, Aliyu’s children weren’t kidnapped, but they had to flee the community due to insecurity. Aliyu vowed not to allow their children to attend school again. 

“What happened that day was unexpected; nobody thought they might go and attack the school.  I promised that none of my children would ever again attend a school or any form of Western education,” she says. 

Since 2019, due to Nigeria’s ten-year conflict with northern Islamist insurgents, over 2,295 teachers have been killed and 1,400 primary and secondary schools have been destroyed.

In Sokoto State, in northwest Nigeria, attacks by bandits have become frequent, especially in Goronyo, where over 50 people were abducted and 43 people were killed in 2022. 

In addition to displacing almost 2 million people, the crisis has seen the population of out-of-school children increase by more than 60% in the last 13 years to 1.8 million.

Beyond the loss of homes, properties and businesses that made learning accessible for their children, the crisis has left parents with horrible memories, leading them to stop their children from attending school.

Nana Girls and Women Empowerment Initiative, a nonprofit organization, is helping parents overcome their fears by organizing town-hall meetings with displaced parents to explain how education is essential to their children’s future and why they should be allowed back to school. 

“We decided to act when we realized women who are displaced by banditry find it difficult to survive. Their children were no longer attending school years after they had witnessed the terror attacks from their previous areas,” says Dr Fatima Adamu, Executive Director, Nana Girls and Women Empowerment Initiative. “Some women stopped enrolling their children in school due to the fear of another sudden attack. They were also no longer financially stable enough to make learning provisions for their children. 

“So, firstly, we organized ‘educational advocacy for wage-group women’ in those communities, educating them about how education is important for their children’s future and why they should overlook their past horrible experiences and allow their children to return to classes.”

Uraimatu Muhammadu’s two children were in the community primary school at Boyakai in Goronyo LGA of Sokoto State, which was raided in October 2021. She had traveled when the attack occurred, and came back to find out that her 15-year-old son, Ibrahim, was missing after the attack. While  Muhammadu’s daughter survived, they were displaced as their home and properties had been destroyed in an earlier attack on their village.

“We are left with nothing,” Muhammadu says. “The attack that occurred some weeks before the death of my child at school made us lose our property. Our house was scorched, and the bandits carted away all the cows and sheep my husband used for business.” 

Like Aliyu, Muhammadu also vowed not to allow her only daughter to attend school again. However, last year the NGO organized an educational summit in the Manna Babba community, where internally displaced people (IDPs) from Goronyo live. They began to understand why their children needed to return to school and, with full support from the organization, allowed them to return. 

“We listened to Nana’s organization after they explained what may be the great outcome of our children’s future if we shun our past experiences and allow their children back to school. They freely enrolled my daughter two years after we were displaced here,” says Muhammadu. 

Beyond taking on the financial burden of education by sponsoring the children to school, Nana Girls and Women Empowerment Initiative is working with the local governments to enroll children in schools closer to displaced communities.

“Over 200 displaced children across some rural areas in Sokoto have returned to school with our full support. We worked with the LGA Education Secretaries, who helped us process the admissions in schools closer to the children,” says Dr Adamu. “We make provisions for their uniforms, school bags, books, and other learning materials. We try to source from philanthropists and sew the children’s uniforms. We are also working on ways to continue mentoring these children so that we won’t be affected socially or economically. We want them to succeed in life, and we are trying to organize extra lessons.”

She shares the challenges that her organization has been facing in their efforts to provide education to underprivileged children, saying, “The demand was so massive beyond the organization’s plan. We want to ensure that affected children get back to school, but we are facing a lack of enough funds to enroll more children.”

To address the situation, the organization has been reaching out to philanthropists for support. “We are asking them to help us with some pairs of uniforms so that we can enroll more children,” Dr Adamu says. The organization’s dedication to these children extends beyond just getting them back in school. “We want to continue mentoring those children so that they won’t be affected socially or economically.” 

However, they face another challenge: many of the children have been out of school for so long that they need extra lessons to catch up with their studies. “We want them to succeed in life, and we are trying to organize extra lessons if we have enough funds,” she adds. 

Beyond the work of organizations like Nana’s empowerment initiative and UNICEF to reduce the number of out-of-school children in Sokoto State, the state government has declared a state of emergency concerning its education system. The last two years have seen the number of out-of-school children in the state reduce by half, due to government initiatives like the Better Education Services Delivery (BESDA), which built 41,000 non-formal learning centers, 76 post-literary skill acquisition centers and provided learning materials worth over 30 million naira.

While a lot is being done to re-enroll children, from convincing parents to allow their children back to school to providing support to parents and children, the security challenges affecting some areas of the state continue to pose a problem in enrolling children in affected areas.

Edited by Samuel Banjoko and Uzoma Ihejirika