Kupto, a community in Funakaye Local Government Area of Gombe state, had no functional healthcare centre and clean water. To cater to their healthcare needs, they travel long distances to Bajoga or Tongo (the LGA centre). The people of Kupto were also left to their fate to get water from streams and wells prone to diseases before the LRP by ActionAid through Hope for the Lonely and JONAPWD. However, for quite a while now, their stories have changed for the better.  

Rabi Umar, a 30-years old farmer, petty trader, and mother of five, is overjoyed about the fact that not only does she have access to clean, qualitative, and equipped healthcare at her fingertip. She is ecstatic about the fact that the facility has an abundance of water to clean after herself, contrary to her unforgettable prior experience. “For the benefit, I have to start with myself, since I have benefited. First, I came to this community when there was only the old hospital before building the new one; I gave birth to my second child here. I will not forget; when we went, they asked us to come with water because there is no water in the hospital since giving birth, it is important to wash your body before coming back home. I see the difference between this one and the old hospital. Even from the antenatal” 

“There is nothing that gladdens my heart such as the lab; For a common blood test, they will tell you to go to Bajoga; some days, you don’t even have the transport fare but now, we thank God. They will run tests on you, to know what is wrong with you and there is a doctor. Even all these things are things to be proud of in addition to a clean environment unlike previously. Sometimes when you enter the delivery room, you will feel like throwing up but now, you can even eat on your hospital bed” she said. 

Kupto was not only plaque by a lack of accessible healthcare but also a deficit of clean water. Without the luxury of choice, they travel long miles to the stream as they compete with their livestock for water for drinking, cooking, and other uses. This also, unfortunately, means that they will be very much exposed to waterborne diseases. Today, this is no more the story.  

Rabi added: “Honestly, in the past, we have the challenge of water. Our husbands have to go to the stream to get us water that we can drink and use.  In the beginning, when I came to this town, it was difficult for me but later, I had to close my eyes to drink the water; Today, we have boreholes; we are not the only ones benefitting from it; if you are travelling through this town, and you drink from it, you have also benefitted from the water. We that are in town, are benefitting from the water talk more of visitors passing by. Water is the most important of them all” 

For decades, female genital mutilation (FGM) thrived in Okpuitumo community. In 2018, with the collaboration of various ministries, agencies, and departments, after about three years sensitisation with the women, traditional leaders, religious leaders, men groups, and various groups in the community on the effects of FGM and the illegality around it, Okpuitumo community abolished.

During ActionAid’s visit to the community in March 2022, we met Christiana, a mother of 4 who shared her FGM story with us.

I grew up with the belief that female genital mutilation is a norm and is compulsory for every female child. I have seen and heard of ladies that died from the pain and bleeding from female genital mutilation so, I nursed the fear of going through the same for so long.

A few times I also nursed the idea of running away from the community when the time for my cutting approaches, but I was afraid of leaving my family and never seeing them again. On the other hand, I have also seen young ladies whose cutting caught them unawares. Their parents didn’t inform them that they would be cut. For such ladies, strong men are mobilised to hold them down while the cutter then performs her job.

In Okpuitumo community, ladies cannot be wedded in the church or traditionally if they are not circumcised, so this also makes some ladies consent to having their cutting so they could get married. It was based on this belief that I also agreed to the cutting when I was 15 years. The pain was severe, that was the saddest day of my life. On that day, 5 of us were due to be cut that day, I chose to be the last person because I was afraid. The fear I had nursed over the years were built up and a part of me thought I’d die, and the experience wasn’t far from it.

After I was cut, I wouldn’t stop bleeding several days after, the cutter told my mother some evil spirit from my father’s house was the reason I wouldn’t stop building. Some days later, I was already very weak, couldn’t walk or work and I had to be taken on an emergency to the hospital. It was there I was saved and got a new opportunity to live again.

The cutting affected my marriage, I didn’t like my husband touching me because I would experience pain, and I was afraid of childbirth. This nearly led to the end of my marriage but because it had a reduced my sexual desire. I endured all the pains I felt so that my husband wouldn’t ask for a divorce. When I started having children, I didn’t want to have a girl-child because I feared seeing my child go through the painful female genital mutilation. However, when I had my first girl-child, I knew there was no way I would allow her to experience the cutting. I was ready to protect her and shield her from FGM even if it requires me taking her out of the community and running away with her.

If ActionAid hadn’t worked with us to ban the barbaric practice, I am sure I wouldn’t have had my last child- who is also a girl.

When I relocated to this community, I had nothing but a dusty thick polythene bag containing my clothes. I did not know anyone in the community but was only seeking for a place of refuge.

I had left my husband and three children in Adavi community because poverty was really eating deep into the family. We barely had food to eat, and sometimes went on for days with no food except water. The family and I were becoming beggars, begging for food from neighbors who barely had much themselves. The situation became frustrating. My children – 2 boys and 1 girl were unemployed and were also struggling farmers too. My husband and I were small scale farmers- we were just cultivating on a small garden in front of the house, but this had no impact on the family as the produce is never enough for the family.

When I got to Osaragada community, No one could take the risk of accommodating a stranger, but I approached the village head who heard my story and took me into his household.

The village head, Sadiku Otaru ensured I had food to eat every day. He introduced me to the women group, and I began joining the women meetings, trainings organized by ActionAid and started making friends too. It was at the various trainings through the women peer education and safe space group. I learnt about women and child’s right, I learnt about sustainable farming and how to plant cassava properly, use of local manures on the farm than fertilizers. Eventually, I sought for approval for a piece of land from the village head and he gave me a portion of land to be farming. I deployed all my learning from ActionAid on my farm and that was how I began a new journey to farming. I used to think fertilizers was what made the soil and crops healthy but now I know better. The lessons I learnt from ActionAid’s training on agro-ecology helped my in my crop spacing and my produce were very good and healthy. I began selling some of my cassava and maize while I kept some for family consumption. Over time I include beans and Guinea corn because I got improved seedlings from ActionAid. I started saving from the profit I make too. Within this period, the village head allowed my son to move in with me so he can be helping me on the farm.

After 5 years of living with the village head, I approached him again for a land where I can build a house which he obliged. Gradually, my son and I started the construction of a 2-room house which we now live.

Otaru is a jolly good man; never struggles to display his contagious loud laughter. He motioned how he easily would have offered to marry Anase who was at the time vulnerable. But no, he recalled how ActionAid through the LRP trained him on gender equality – respecting the rights of males and females: “If not for ActionAid, I would have thought of marrying her (Anase). We were marrying vulnerable women before, but I decided to protect her when she told me her story”. Otaru insists that the LRP poked at their manly ego, but it was for the good of the community: “ActionAid made us understand the power of women in the community. At first, we (men) were very angry at ActionAid for telling us about gender equality, and they told us not to enslave our wives.” Otaru quickly noted: “As Mary Slessor stopped the killing of twins, ActionAid stopped the maltreatment of women in this community,” he affirms.

Just before dawn, as early as 4 am, children, and women of Aku community make haste to the dust-feasted brook to scoop the surface of the water before the base is unsettled by cows. Water is life in every sense of it in Aku. It determined when children go to school and when mothers make the meal. It affected livelihood, caused diseases and one reported death of a woman due to snake bite on the way to the rocky-mud stream.

ActionAid provided the first humanitarian intervention by any aid organisation in the community. This means a lot to Jimoh Alabi, 48 who narrated how the ActionAid attuned the community to a world of possibilities. “We never knew that we could mobilise ourselves to make demands from the government, we thought government was very far away but through the sensitisation by ActionAid our eyes have opened” Alabi affirms confidently.

“When ActionAid came, we made a list of what we were lacking in the community (in teasing out right denial issues); we listed the bad water situation, light (electricity), livelihood support for women, health centre, school and support for our farmers. ActionAid decided to provide a borehole because it was the priority on the list, while using a service modelling approach. After sinking  the borehole, they told us that they will build our capacity so that we can be able to advocate for other needs of the community,” he said.

Alabi tickles his fingers restlessly as he excitedly nudges to mention the outcomes of the advocacy training: “We were trained on how to mobilise ourselves and write the government. After the training, we decided to practise what we learnt, we went to the Ministry of Water Resources with some of the community people, we told them that we needed water, and we kept going back to make this same demand until they sent some people to our community to assess the need. The government sunk the new motorized borehole. So, we now have one borehole from ActionAid and another one from the government” he enthused.

The community is now empowered to engage the government, began to advocate for replacement of the community’s electricity transformer. It took 4years of relentless advocacy visits to relevant government offices for the transformer to be released. “If not for the knowledge we acquired from ActionAid, we would have given up, we won’t even bother to make any attempt” said Alabi.