Impact Stories - ActionAid Community Sponsorship

The Narrow Escape

‘’I was 8 months pregnant when the community started getting flooded. We had nowhere to go so we stayed. The flood eventually got very heavy, and it brought down our house. I realized I couldn’t find my son after the house collapsed, only to hear his groans from under the rubble of a collapsed wall. I tried to save him, but my strength failed me. I eventually called for help, and he was rescued after about 2 hours.

I cried because I thought that my son was dead. He was rescued by a youth who could swim. They broke the bricks into pieces to bring out my son. My three-year-old son had gulped in a large quantity of water and community members quickly took him to the house of a community nurse for medical attention because the flood had submerged our community hospital.

When words came back to me that he was alive, I cried even more.

My husband is a Farmer but the flood has submerged his farm too. We no longer have a sustainable source of livelihood. Although, we have temporarily moved to a community that is on a highland and I hope the floods rescind quickly for us to start rebuilding our lives. My husband goes to town daily to do menial jobs so that we can eat. The cash for food from ActionAid will help us for the next three to four weeks.’’ Hasiba, Duiwigi Community, Gwiwa LGA, Jigawa State.

She is one of the 1200 women provided with emergency response kits and cash for food in Jigawa amidst the 2022 flood.

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Mobilising Actions Towards the Abolition of Infanticide (MATAI)

How the journey began

In 2019, ActionAid Nigeria began implementing the MATAI project across 57 communities in AMAC, Abaji, Kuje, Kwali, and Gwagwalada Area Councils of Nigeria’s federal capital. These communities believe that twins and other multiple-birth babies, children born after twins or those with albinism, down syndrome, cerebral palsy, abnormal teeth growth (upper teeth first) birth defects, and babies whose mothers die while nursing them are considered to be evil and must be killed – this belief is gradually changing.

In the last 26 years, Vine Heritage Home (VHH), Kuje, situated within the house of its founders, Pst Steven and Chinwe Olusola, has been a haven for these children. ‘‘We started in our own house with a twin, then another twin and the numbers continued to grow. With the continued increase, it became imperative to expand our home, so more buildings were added to the existing one, yet it wasn’t enough as the children grew to 158.’’ Pastor Olusola Steven said.

Raising Funds for MATAI

With the four hundred and ninety-five thousand euros funding secured from the European Union and a co-funding of fifty-five thousand euros by ActionAid Nigeria, the race to raise more funds to support VHH began.

‘‘The children’s stories and the quest to help them live a life of dignity were our motivation every time we had to pitch to organisations or individuals for donation. At the onset, Community Sponsorship also donated two million naira but more needed to be done. There was a whole list of things we were grappling with, such as the purchase of a permanent site and the construction of their new home and a nursery, nutritional support, and most importantly, abolishing the practice in the communities, amongst others.’’ Thelma Thani, Resource Mobilisation Coordinator.

Challenges and Successes

‘’COVID-19 was one of the challenges that hit differently. All activities were halted. We couldn’t continue with the sensitisation in practicing communities, our goal of completing the construction of the permanent site on time was also halted, the initial cost of things planned sky-rocketed, the focus of donors shifted to the pandemic, and our support for the home also drifted towards safety and survival amidst the pandemic.’’ Tommy Ubong, MATAI Project Coordinator hinted.

Despite the setback, in January 2021, the parents of a set of triplets rescued by the VHH four years earlier came back for their children with the community representative. The parents are now committed to protecting their children and are being monitored by the National Human Rights Commission. In addition, twenty community advocates against infanticide who go around the practicing communities were trained on child’s rights and advocacy. Fifty-seven traditional birth attendants were also trained in providing better services using approved manuals from the National Primary Health Care Development Agency and community health influencers, promoters, and services.

Where are we?

In May 2022, the construction of the new permanent site comprising gender-sensitive dormitories, a nursery, a hall, and a clinic was completed and handed over to Vine Heritage Home on 2022 children’s day by the Head of EU delegation to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Amb. Samuela Isopi.

What next?

Mobilising Action Towards the Abolishment of Infanticide continues. ActionAid is committed to working with various MDAs, corporates, and individuals to ensure that all practicing communities end the barbaric practice, equip the children’s new home, and help VHH become self-sustaining. ActionAid Nigeria is working to raise eighty-seven million naira towards all of these as part of phase 2 of the MATAI project.

ActionAid truly appreciates all corporate organisations and community sponsors who donated towards this project. Without you, we wouldn’t have achieved all we did.

If you’d like to donate towards any of our outstanding activities, please call 07007070700 for more information and donations can also be made to ActionAid Nigeria’s Community Sponsorship GTBank 0216379681

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The end of female genital mutilation in Okpuitumo community

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.

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Breeding male champions for women’s right

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.

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Emboldened for Actions

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.

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ActionAid Built Our Only School

Hakimawa is an agrarian community. It is a community in slow transition to modern times. Like many communities, the houses are muddy, the children run around the heap of sandy surrounding with no clothes on. In Hakimawa, the people live, just to survive the next day.

Sprawling in population but stunted in progress, Hakimawa grew from 47 household in the early 1990s to 199 households at the moment. The headcount of adults above 18 are 510; the children are more in number: “children could be more because an average household have about 11 children” Hakimi Salihu Hakimawa, the Village head struggled to recount.

This community is lacking in every basic infrastructure, it has no health facility; the women give birth at home and the sick are treated with local herbs. It had no school until ActionAid built the only primary school in the community.

“When they (ActionAid and ASURPI team) visited us, we thought they were from the government, we were so happy because government people don’t come to our community, we see them just once or twice every four years. They (ActionAid and ASURPI team) asked us what our priority need is, we told them we need everything because there was nothing- no water, no electricity, no school, and no health centre but after discussing with my people, we decided to ask for education, we told them to build a school so that our children can get education. If we get education, we can get every other thing” the Village head said.

In 2010 ActionAid built the first school in the community. The excitement of having its first educational facility was ecstatic; the Village head instructed each household to send their children to school. The following day of the school opening; 107 pupils turned out. The pupils outnumbered the size of the school and the volunteer teachers at the time but they were glad they had a school to attend.

“When we saw that the population of the school is growing so much and there were not enough teachers who were qualified, we went to the government, we visited the Education Secretary, he promised to send teachers to the school and he did what he promised, he sent 8 teachers. We are only waiting for the government to add more schools to what ActionAid has already done” said the Village head.

Helping Gunguntagwaye access quality health care

Sajida Bashiru, 4 lay weak on the floor; her mother Amina, rested the child on the floor just to adjust her dropping wrapper. Sajida was rushed to the health centre on a motorbike; “she has malaria” Amina whispered to the waiting arms of the nurse on duty, they both hurried into an open office. In less than 15minutes Sajida walked out of the room with Amina wearing a wide smile.

“People can die of simple malaria if they don’t have a clinic to attend” said Karima Aliyu. Karima is the women leader of Gungun Tagwaye Community.

“Women have really suffered during pregnancy because of the lack of good health centre in the community, the former place we used as health centre was very small and people are not always going there because you cannot get medicine and sometimes nobody to attend to you” Karima recall how the community lost a pregnant mother and child from stress of travelling to a neighbouring community: “I remember we lost a woman and her unborn child because they have to travel on bad road to the nearby hospital to deliver her baby, the baby and the mother died” she sadly recounts.

The government replaced the old rusty mud health centre built by the community to a better structure but abandoned it after commissioning. The structure was unused because of lack of personnel and medication. In 2013 after request from the community, ActionAid renovated the structure, equipped the facility and also empowered community members with advocacy skills to get government attention.

“After ActionAid did the renovation of the Clinic, they also bought beds and provided medicine, then they enlightened us that we can use advocacy to bring government into our community, we decided to write and visit the General Hospital, we requested for more nurses especially female nurses which they gave us five female nurses” the women leader said through an interpreter.

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ActionAid provides Rice Milling Factory for Gida Agoda Community

Women in Gidan Agoda community had their role clearly spelt – Take care of the needs of their spouses, fetch firewood, make the meal, and give birth to more children. The husbands, mostly peasant farmers and petty traders were the sole providers for the household. This has continued as a tradition, leaving women as absolute dependent. The consequences are obvious; women become victims of domestic violence, social disconnection, and economic exclusion.

Wasila Hamisu, 29 recall times when women in the community rarely contribute to the economy or the leadership of the community: “Before ActionAid and ASURPI came into our community, women were left behind, we were not trading, we were not doing any business, the men beat their wives, women were not regarded much, some people think women are not suppose to have education, we were just good as house wives” Wasila recalled.

Today in Gidan Agoda, women are participants and contributors to the economy of their households and the community. “When ActionAid and ASURPI came to our community, they asked us (the women group) what we want, we told them we want to be empowered with skills so that we can farm rice” Wasila affirmed the wish was granted: “we were given milling machine”.

The women were formed into a registered cooperative and linked to the Small Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN). The 50 women members of the group were trained on improving their agricultural yield and sustaining their business, they were then supported with the sum of 3 Million Naira as interest free loan of 24months for which only 70 percent was required to be paid.

The cooperative is making profits and increasing their outputs. It has increased rice production by about 60 percent, making about 30 percent in profit.

The increased economic activities of the women restored their self confidence and improved their relationships with their spouses. “Before I couldn’t look at people’s face when talking to them, I can’t interact well but now I can talk freely in public and express my mind. I never believed that in my entire life I will ever be able to travel by air and sleep in good hotel but I enjoyed all these because of ActionAid” Wasila said in an emotionally laden voice.

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Helping Gunguntagwaye access quality health care

“People can die of simple malaria if they don’t have a clinic to attend” said Karima Aliyu. Karima is the women leader of Gungun Tagwaye Community.

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Dinkiri Girls are back in School

Sabongari Dinkiri is a small but fast growing community in Kebbi State; the houses are muddy and far-flung from the other. It is predominantly a farming community of an estimated 900 inhabitants.

It is Tuesday, 10:15am; a school day and time, but children are seen cladding unto plastic plates, briskly walking in groups. “It is worse than this before” said Umar Muhammed when asked why some children were not seen in school.

“Before 2009, you will not find too many girls attending school because we don’t see the need for it. The boys can be enrolled into school while the girls follow their parents to the farm, they fetch firewood, take food to their parents in the farm and do house chores” Umar explained, noting that: “Dinkiri community has been in existence for more than 100 years; no girl has ever proceeded to Secondary School” he said.

Habiba Umar, Muhammed’s daughter grew up thinking that schooling was not a necessity; she loves to go to the farms in company of other girls of her age. At the farms they pick up residue of harvested crops and go home to help their mothers with house chore. This was a daily routine.

“In 2019, ActionAid and ASURPI came to our community with plenty school materials, they brought school sanders, books, bags and other writing material, they even gave our women 5,000 Naira each so that they can trade and to support our girls in school. This greatly motivated us to begin to take our girls to school. Before ActionAid coming into our community, girls don’t go to school in our community” Muhammed asserts.

Motivated by the gifts of school materials, Habiba and other 8 girls began to attend school more regularly. The new school clothes and sanders was a big motivator. “I was very happy when I received the gifts from ActionAid; it makes me look forward to attending school every day” Habiba said.

Habiba is excited that she will be advancing from Junior Secondary School to Senior Secondary School. “We don’t have so many girls completing Junior Secondary School, even the boys don’t continue after Primary School because we have only one Primary School and the Secondary School is in another community, so I am happy that my daughter and some other girls from the community will be going to Senior Secondary. I will do everything I can to support her” Umar assured.

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“Even now I don’t want to marry him until I finish university and if he doesn’t want to wait, he should marry someone else,”

Nafia Garba, 18, is in her final year at Government Day Secondary School, Warrah, but she would not be if not for the intervention of ActionAid’s youth Activist – the Activistas. In her community girls were usually married off once they completed primary or junior secondary school, but Nafisa’s parents wanted her to finish her schooling first. However, her father’s elder brother disagreed and arranged for her to wed a young man in a nearby village. Nafisa was forced to drop out of school for a year selling pastries and wrappers while the arrangements were being made. When the news reached her fellow Activistas, they worked to intervene, but it wasn’t easy.

“In this community, when a girl is getting married it is not her biological father that gives her hand, it is his elder brother,” Nafisa explained. “So they had to convince him because it didn’t want it to be that my father had given his daughter in marriage and now didn’t want him to give me out.”

The group rallied members of Nafisa’s family – including her parents, her father’s younger brother and her mother’s older sister – as well as the village elders to plead her case. Eventually, her uncle relented and allowed her to stay in school. Though she is still pledged to be married, Nafia feels confident that her education will not be disrupted again.

“Even now I don’t want to marry him until I finish university and if he doesn’t want to wait, he should marry someone else,” she said.